Spoilers TOS: Child of Two Worlds by Greg Cox Review Thread

[Christopher]

It's a judgment call to be sure, but let's be honest: had I used standard TOS terminology instead of "The Cage" terminology, we'd be seeing comments like:

"Sloppy Author, everyone knows Pike's crew used lasers, not phasers!"

You could always address it in the acknowledgments/author's note. And I think that with Enterprise's phase pistols, and the Kelvin using phasers in 2233 in the '09 movie, the ship has kinda sailed by now. Anyone who's still upset about the phaser/laser issue is never going to be satisfied anyway.

Although I guess it comes down to whether you're trying to write a standalone representation of the Pike era, which apparently was your approach, or trying to make a Pike-era story feel like part of the larger Trek narrative as we now understand it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: Cyprians

I'm re-reading Ishmael now (having finished, enjoyed, and rated Child of Two Worlds). A little over a quarter of the way into it, and Cyprians haven't shown up yet (but the front cover just fell off, which should indicate just how many times I've re-read it; I guess I'll be talking to the new bookbinding guru at the Museum about it). Of course, they would presumably be showing up in the 23rd century chapters, not the 19th century chapters.

For those not familiar with that opus, Spock investigates some suspicious Klingon activity that turns out to be time-tampering, and gets thrown back to 19th century territorial Seattle. But it's not the historical Seattle of Doc Maynard, Henry Yesler, and the Denny Brothers (as documented in Bill Speidel's Sons of the Profits); rather (in an unauthorized crossover novel), it's the fictionalized Seattle of the 1970s sitcom, Here Come the Brides (which starred a number of Star Trek veterans, most notably Mark Lenard).

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: Cyprians

I'm re-reading Ishmael now (having finished, enjoyed, and rated Child of Two Worlds). A little over a quarter of the way into it, and Cyprians haven't shown up yet (but the front cover just fell off, which should indicate just how many times I've re-read it; I guess I'll be talking to the new bookbinding guru at the Museum about it). Of course, they would presumably be showing up in the 23rd century chapters, not the 19th century chapters.

You actually will find them in the C19 chapters, as "Cyprian" is a C18-9 euphemism for prostitute! (I guess people from Cyprus had a bad rap.) that someone on Memory Beta listed them under alien races!

It's a judgment call to be sure, but let's be honest: had I used standard TOS terminology instead of "The Cage" terminology, we'd be seeing comments like:

"Sloppy Author, everyone knows Pike's crew used lasers, not phasers!"

You could always address it in the acknowledgments/author's note. And I think that with Enterprise's phase pistols, and the Kelvin using phasers in 2233 in the '09 movie, the ship has kinda sailed by now. Anyone who's still upset about the phaser/laser issue is never going to be satisfied anyway.

Although I guess it comes down to whether you're trying to write a standalone representation of the Pike era, which apparently was your approach, or trying to make a Pike-era story feel like part of the larger Trek narrative as we now understand it.

I'm with Greg on this-- part of the appeal of the "Cage" era for me is its more retro, Forbidden Planet feel. Maybe "phaser" is a contraction for "phased laser,"* but some people in 2250s preferred to shorten it to laser?

* Yes, I know what it supposedly stands for, but as far as I know, that was never said on screen.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

One of the memos in The Making of Star Trek lists a number of pre-phaser alternatives that were under consideration. The two that I can recall off the top of my head are "CLEB" (Coherent Light Energy Beam) and "BEE" (Beam of Electromagnetic Energy).

I'm aware of two acronymic meanings for "phaser," both of which are technically "backronyms": "PHoton Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation," and the later, officially endorsed (at least the last I heard), but not actually canonical, "PHASed Energy Rectification."

And personally, I side with Mr. Cox on the issue of what at least one reference book (which may have been a fanfic reference book) referred to as the "40mm hand laser."

 

[Idran]

Christopher, didn't you mention in one of your annotations the additional possibility that "phaser" was just an abbreviated form of "phase pistol", like "cell phone" vs. "cell"? Or was that someone else?

 

[Christopher]

^That is something I've mentioned somewhere as a likely idea. Clearly the creator of Enterprise meant phase pistols to be a direct ancestor of phasers at the very least, so in the context of modern continuity, it doesn't make sense that there'd be a temporary change back to lasers.

 

[Bibliomike]

It's a judgment call to be sure, but let's be honest: had I used standard TOS terminology instead of "The Cage" terminology, we'd be seeing comments like:

"Sloppy Author, everyone knows Pike's crew used lasers, not phasers!"

And my survey of previous Pike novels indicated that it varied from book to book. Some used "lasers," some used "phasers," but I wanted to capture the feel of "The Cage" as much as possible.

Yeah, I would've been one of those readers. So I salute your choice, even though, as both you and Christopher point out, there are other possibilities. As Christopher can tell you from our interactions at the Tor.com rewatch, I let go of my "everybody knows" head canon only very, very reluctantly...!

I guess in some alternate reality's Star Trek, viewers are treated to the wonderful phrase, "Set CLEBS to stun..."

 

[Ronald Held]

Somewhere maybe in the Tech board, a hypothesis was that progress with lasers and phasers was uneven so some eras used phasers and some others lasers?

 

[Greg Cox]

The existence of ENTERPRISE did complicate matters. Most of the previous Pike novels and comics were published before ENTERPRISE was added to the canon, so I found myself trying to accommodate what we saw on ENTERPRISE with what we saw on "The Cage" and TOS . . ..

 

[Christopher]

Come to think of it... As I've remarked on occasions in the past, what bugs me about Pike-era stories is how they always huddle so tightly around the time frame of "The Cage," when there's a whole decade beyond that which has barely been touched on. A novel set later in Pike's run could let you bypass the whole laser/phaser issue; if they were using phasers, say, five or seven years after "The Cage," readers would be free to assume either that the "lasers" had been phasers all along or that they'd been replaced with the new technology in the interim.

 

[Greg Cox]

Come to think of it... As I've remarked on occasions in the past, what bugs me about Pike-era stories is how they always huddle so tightly around the time frame of "The Cage," when there's a whole decade beyond that which has barely been touched on. A novel set later in Pike's run could let you bypass the whole laser/phaser issue; if they were using phasers, say, five or seven years after "The Cage," readers would be free to assume either that the "lasers" had been phasers all along or that they'd been replaced with the new technology in the interim.

That works, although I'd probably feel obliged to throw in a line addressing that:

"Pike had to admit that that these newfangled 'phasers' were a big improvement on the old-school laser pistols that had been standard issue when he first took command of the Enterprise."

 

[Markonian]

I have no problem with the term lasers. As Greg explains, it helps get into the feeling of the era. Plus, Pike enjoys anachronisms. Maybe he's just part of a fad of the 2250s were Starfleet likes to call their phasers "lasers" and puts their crews in jumpers? Maybe laser is the brandname because the company that supplies Starfleet marketed them as such? I know I have to bite my tongue to not say "...your Android iPhone..."

Technological progress is more or less steady, but cultural trends can vary a lot.

 

[Greg Cox]

I confess that I still refer to the computerized directory at my local library as "the card catalog" and talk about "taping" shows off the TV.

 

[Mysterion]

^^^^
And I, showing my age, still think of "dialing" the phone.

 

[Greg Cox]

^^^^
And I, showing my age, still think of "dialing" the phone.

My grandmother talked about "listening" to the TV until the day she died.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: "listening to television," well, unless it's a highly visual show, e.g., certain game shows, certain newscasts, or Mission: Impossible, the audio component is probably more important than the visual anyway. And indeed, the low-grade limited animation seen in most Saturday morning series (i.e., animating only those body parts that absolutely have to move, doing them in "sixes" or even "twelves," and doing lots of action in silhouette) has long been referred to disparagingly as "illustrated radio." And of course, multiband radios that could pick up TV audio were fairly common for several years.

Personally, I expect that laser-based and "rapid nadion"-based weaponry were probably leapfrogging each other, with phaser technology not winning out for good until sometime between The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before, and even then reusing existing "40mm hand laser" (to use the fannish designation) housings for first-generation hand phasers before the familiar phasers that went into service with about the same time as the TOS-era uniforms (and the final retirement of the gooseneck display screens).

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I expect that laser-based and "rapid nadion"-based weaponry were probably leapfrogging each other, with phaser technology not winning out for good until sometime between The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before, and even then reusing existing "40mm hand laser" (to use the fannish designation) housings for first-generation hand phasers before the familiar phasers that went into service with about the same time as the TOS-era uniforms (and the final retirement of the gooseneck display screens).

Except in Enterprise, they were using phase pistols 100 years before "The Cage," and nobody in that show used "lasers." The reference has been retconned out of the universe, along with the "time barrier," grinning Spock, and the bit about women on the bridge being rare. It's just the nature of pilots that they try out things that don't work and get glossed over later as concepts are refined.

 

[Greg Cox]

I admit I avoided the "time barrier" business since it could create confusion and lead the reader to anticipate a time-travel twist. And I made the crew more diverse than was seen in the "The Cage," while also lifting crew members from previous Pike novels and comics.

On other hand, I believe I stuck with the "laser" thing when I did my Captain April story years ago, since April was before Pike--and ENTERPRISE and its "phase pistols" weren't even a gleam in anybody's eye back then.

 

[Christopher]

Back when Doug Drexler had his Drex Files blog, he offered an interesting explanation for the "time barrier" thing, that it was actually more of a timing barrier involving the synchronization of the warp engines. That sort of teardrop-shaped module on NX-01 between the nacelles was meant to be a governor that helped the engines create a symmetrical warp field, and the breakthrough was when they came up with a way to create a symmetrical field without a separate governor, which is why 23rd-century ships don't have that governor between the nacelles. Solving that problem enabled them to develop faster engines, hence Tyler's line to the illusory castaways.

 

[Bibliomike]

I admit I avoided the "time barrier" business since it could create confusion and lead the reader to anticipate a time-travel twist. And I made the crew more diverse than was seen in the "The Cage," while also lifting crew members from previous Pike novels and comics.

On other hand, I believe I stuck with the "laser" thing when I did my Captain April story years ago, since April was before Pike--and ENTERPRISE and its "phase pistols" weren't even a gleam in anybody's eye back then.

Yeah, I noticed you didn't have Pike ordering "time warp factors." I won't lie; I was a smidge disappointed. But some terms probably are worth retconning away.

The more diverse crew is much appreciated! Not until the recent rewatch on Tor.com did I realize we only saw white people in Pike's crew (apart from Technician Yamata - did you get to give him his name, Greg?). Mohindas is from the Marvel Early Voyages comic, right? (he asked, too lazy to check Memory Beta...)

I also liked the anticipatory allusion to "Space Seed" as Spock reflects on installing a knockout gas defense system next time the ship is up for refit!

Oh, I also wondered: a Klingon character says (or thinks) the Enterprise is a Starship-class vessel. Is this original with you? I am glad you kept Pike's "United Space Ship" language, but wondered if Starship-class was established somewhere in the tie-in literature; and, if so, when the Enterprise became a Constitution-class ship. (When refit before Kirk's tenure? Of course, Diane Carey's Final Frontier has it as a Constitution-class ship from the start...)

And - similar to my question about when "Star Fleet" became "Starfleet" in Trek publishing style guide: When did Starship Enterprise become the name of the ship? I always took it as "...voyages of the starship Enterprise..." but I have seen both words italicized in books for some time now.