Re: Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game Review thread
Bashir makes another near-accusation of genetic elitism on Sarina’s part, again without cause. I’m pleased that the novel’s reminding us it’s on his mind and that his enhanced genes are an important contributing factor to why he’s being pursued for this sort of work. Still, the issue’s being underplayed, which is somewhat disappointing. The potential comparisons between Bashir, having hidden his unique talents to conform to a Federation frightened of inequalities, and the Breen – whose culture and society require outward conformity for fear of bias – is potentially fascinating. Well, I suppose comments like the one he makes here are letting me draw the comparisons myself (the novel’s provoking me and letting me do the thinking, as it were), but I do feel there’s a potential here that’s being underplayed.
Poor Nar. She was a bit of a Breen Bashir, really – romantic and a little too secure in her own righteousness, which despite her intelligence meant she viewed things through a prism of unrealistic expectation (Hopes for asylum in the UFP upon immediately encountering human “observers”). There’s a distinction between idealism and a romanticized detachment from reality, and sometimes Nar appeared to be on the wrong side of the line, sadly. Her suffering here is portrayed movingly enough. I’m interested in the degree to which the Confederacy political system promotes and defends the Breen culture, and the degree to which the culture is exploited by or serves to support the oppressive Breen political system. They’re obviously a repressive society, and I’m wondering how much is genuine moralizing on the dangers of bias and how much is simply an excuse or means to control the people. The climate of moral fear surrounding bias and nepotism would certainly give an excuse for oppressive government to thrive...(Breen have turned their entire lives over to the state, in everything down to selecting mates). So, the big question is the relationship the government has to the cultural ideology. How oppressive for the sake of their power are they and how genuinely committed to their ideals, as twisted as those might appear? Are Nar and her associates genuinely disgusting to the authorities (at least on some level) or are they simply threats to government power needing to be crushed, absolutely nothing more?
Sarina tells Bashir: “no-one said intelligence work was noble”. That’s the hardest obstacle, I’d suppose, when trying to integrate Bashir into this field of work. Bashir needs the comfort of an idealistic framework behind everything he does; he endows everything with a righteous significance (including his own objections to that he finds unrighteous). If he can’t find the glowing righteousness, he isn’t comfortable doing it. That’s dangerous, because in that case, when you
are doing something anyway it leads to the urge to find something righteous where you shouldn’t. In this case, Sarina herself has become Bashir’s focus for the idealistic meaning. He is endowing her with a significance and nobility he probably shouldn’t, because he can’t find anything else about the mission that offers a basis for his needed romanticism.
K’mtok’s in a good mood. I liked his portrayal here; he seems to have embraced an excessively jolly demeanour as a means of staying afloat in a rapidly changing galaxy.
Certainly I’ve not seen him so exuberant before. After all that’s happened over the last year and a half, he’s apparently decided that overblown cheeriness is better than snarling gloom as a coping mechanism. I wouldn’t know which Bacco prefers, but his gleeful throw-open-your-arms-oh-well-what-can-we-do approach is pretty fun.
So, apparently the Kinshaya, Gorn and Tzenkethi are all getting overexcited about their newly increased status and are causing trouble.
Andorian secession debate! I’m very eager for
Paths of Disharmony, as I always enjoyed the Andorian plot arc. I’m glad it hasn’t been forgotten or abandoned in the post-
Destiny novels.
“I regret to inform you your approval ratings are excellent”.
Still, Bacco is evidently feeling the strain. She’s being simply irritable rather than irritable-amusing.
Sarina kills a Breen soldier, leaving Bashir conflicted. Bashir himself has killed before, but again, he needs a sense of some sort of righteous framework to justify it. It’s hard to feel that when your partner simply breaks into someone’s office and murders them. Bashir’s need to find nobility, righteousness and external justification for everything, rather than be content with an internalized set of ethics or principles, is troublesome here; if he were content with a truly internalized ethical system, he’d know whether or not he was comfortable with the mission’s potential demands. Either he’d have refused to take the assignment or he’d accept the consequences as Sarina has. Instead, he’s not being committed to either his own ethical system
or the mission. He’s in worrying limbo. He tries to justify the death of the Breen using the “combatant, warfare” concept. He tries to noble-it-up again, giving a meaning to it other than simple “we want his information so we broke into his office, he got in the way, Sarina killed him”. However, a doctor, it seems to me, should know better than to think there is any sort of necessary
meaning in violence and death. Unless Bashir thinks that when
he kills, it’s somehow more noble because he “only kills when he has good reason to”. The clash here isn’t, it seems to me, between the Hippocratic Oath and the license to kill at all; it’s between Bashir’s need to find external justification in a framework of righteousness rather than be content to chart an individual ethical path, and a mission that has no framework of moral righteousness at all but is simple power politics. It’s not doctor Vs spy but Bashir’s personal needs Vs bleak reality. And the danger is (I begin to realize) that because Bashir is so committed to a framework of external morality and "nobility" rather than internal
ethics, he is potentially losing track of an ethical grounding entirely. When faced with a bleak reality of power politics in which he can’t find his moral pointers, he has no real personal ethical position to fall back on; instead, he has to find a new framework to support him. And there’s only one potential focus around, isn’t there? Sarina.
So, Breen names are somewhat like those of Andorians, apparently, in that they have a short form for ease of use and official designation, while their full name can be much longer.
Gren is the Breen delegate to the Governing Board; just as Kalavak was the Romulan representative. Hmmm, are all the member states doing this (giving the old ambassador-to-the-Federation the job)? I can see some sense in that, actually. So, are Zogozin and Emra there too? Tezrene is the Pact’s ambassador to the UFP; do the Tholians have another representative on the Board or is she pulling double duty?
Domo Brex, the Breen head of state, makes his first appearance. This scene had some more interesting political insights into the Pact.
The description of Utyrak was effective. An interesting concept for a city.
...No comment.
