Violence in Trek lit: Opinions?

[Sci]

I, on the other hand, would argue that ST09 did depict the emotional consequences of the destruction of Vulcan as well as it possibly could have within the conceits of a 2-hour action film. I don't think that it was something that was done as a cheap gimmick without dignity or consequence. It's fair enough to say that the ending shouldn't have been a "happy" ending -- but I'd argue that, to start with, the film is deliberately ambiguous about how much time has passed between the main plot and Kirk's taking command, and that, two, that's part of the idea in the film (expressed as subtext earlier in the Spock/Sarek scene) that one should not stop living just because the dead have -- life goes on and death, however horrific, should not be allowed to stop that.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I, on the other hand, would argue that ST09 did depict the emotional consequences of the destruction of Vulcan as well as it possibly could have within the conceits of a 2-hour action film. ...-- but I'd argue that, to start with, the film is deliberately ambiguous about how much time has passed between the main plot and Kirk's taking command, and that, two, that's part of the idea in the film (expressed as subtext earlier in the Spock/Sarek scene) that one should not stop living just because the dead have -- life goes on and death, however horrific, should not be allowed to stop that.

These are all very good points, and I'll think I'll acknowledge them and move on, suddenly conscious that I'm in danger of derailing my own thread into another topic we've already covered in detail...

 

[Jbarney]

I think the topic you brought up was thought provoking. It made me flip through the pages of memory and try to identify any books where the violence was overdone, not necessary, or poorly added to the story. I really have no complaints.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I think the topic you brought up was thought provoking. It made me flip through the pages of memory and try to identify any books where the violence was overdone, not necessary, or poorly added to the story. I really have no complaints.

Thank you. I too cannot think of any Trek book I've read where the violence was overdone or inserted for shock value rather than story purposes. I just wondered if anyone disagreed, and I was interested in how writers approach violent scenes, both from a moral (if that's the right word) position and a practical one.

 

[PaulSimpson]

I've been hit by cars, gone through plate glass doors, etc in real life, and I have to tell you, it's an overrated experience

Wow. Being a writer in the UK is very different than being one here in the USA.

Nah, that's just David... It'd happen to him wherever he was Oh, and seriously, don't dismiss Fearful Symmetry - what's been referred to is a fundamental underpinning of both the perpetrator and the victim, and certainly made me look at the former in a completely different light.

Paul

 

[Christopher]

...but I'd argue that, to start with, the film is deliberately ambiguous about how much time has passed between the main plot and Kirk's taking command...

Well, screenwriter Roberto Orci said in the TrekMovie Q&A that it was ambiguous, but in the ceremony at the end where Kirk is given his commendation and formally assigned to the Enterprise, he still has traces of the bruises around his eye that he sustained earlier in the film. So it can't be more than a few days later, unless he sustained identical injuries at a later time. True, his face is completely healed in the final scene on the bridge, so that could've been an unspecified time after the ceremony, but the ceremony itself was almost certainly quite soon after the main body of the film.

 

[Sci]

...but I'd argue that, to start with, the film is deliberately ambiguous about how much time has passed between the main plot and Kirk's taking command...

Well, screenwriter Roberto Orci said in the TrekMovie Q&A that it was ambiguous, but in the ceremony at the end where Kirk is given his commendation and formally assigned to the Enterprise, he still has traces of the bruises around his eye that he sustained earlier in the film. So it can't be more than a few days later, unless he sustained identical injuries at a later time. True, his face is completely healed in the final scene on the bridge, so that could've been an unspecified time after the ceremony, but the ceremony itself was almost certainly quite soon after the main body of the film.

Honestly, I'd rather fudge it and say it was a few years later so that the promotion makes more sense, and just say that he's returning from a mission where he's suffered identical injuries. Just like I'd rather fudge the rather explicit depiction of Vulcan as being visible from Delta Vega as being a visual representation of Spock's telepathically sensing the death cries of all of Vulcan akin to his sensing the deaths of the Intrepid crew.

 

[Jbarney]

The fudging you are engaging is the sort of thing I do with the timeline all the time, but its not necessary in either instance. The film leads us to believe that Starfleet and the UFP are involved in something at the time Nero strikes Vulcan. The fleet was otherwise engaged, and the new Flag Ship was only able to get graduating cadets to man key areas of the ship. In that light, Kirk's promotion at the end of the movie doesn't sound that far-fetched.

With respect to Delta Vega....I agreed with you when I saw the film, but conversations here and on other boards have swayed my thinking to accept what the writers intended for the film....for their to be a planet in the Vulcan system with the name Delta Vega. Very likely the planet near Vulcan we see in STMP.

 

[Jbarney]

I think the topic you brought up was thought provoking. It made me flip through the pages of memory and try to identify any books where the violence was overdone, not necessary, or poorly added to the story. I really have no complaints.

Thank you. I too cannot think of any Trek book I've read where the violence was overdone or inserted for shock value rather than story purposes. I just wondered if anyone disagreed, and I was interested in how writers approach violent scenes, both from a moral (if that's the right word) position and a practical one.

I just want to point out that the shock value of violence can be extremely effective and can add to the amount of tension a villian's actions create. While I think I understand what you are saying, sometimes the shock value involved with acts of violence, if not overdone, can be really effective.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I've been hit by cars, gone through plate glass doors, etc in real life, and I have to tell you, it's an overrated experience

Wow. Being a writer in the UK is very different than being one here in the USA.

Nah, that's just David... It'd happen to him wherever he was

It was good research for that Final Destination book.

I don't think there are any other writers on here who's idea of a good night out has involved sword-fights in bars to discover whether a katana, rapier, dual-wield gladius, or Blade's sword is better for urban combat*, or who feels that fighting with live steel is about the most jazzing thing one can do with one's clothes on.**

Oh, and seriously, don't dismiss Fearful Symmetry - what's been referred to is a fundamental underpinning of both the perpetrator and the victim, and certainly made me look at the former in a completely different light.

I'm just not mad on rape/sexual assault scenes. Family reasons. You can imagine how far I failed to get in, well, any of Stephen Donaldson's books...

*- Katana all the way. Unless I'm the one with dual gladii...

**- Don't try this at home, kids! I'm a trained martial artist (been doing this for over 20 years) who's given re-enactment displays for museums and stuff, and said sword-fights tend to be with other similarly experienced experts under controlled conditions!

Well, usually.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I think the topic you brought up was thought provoking. It made me flip through the pages of memory and try to identify any books where the violence was overdone, not necessary, or poorly added to the story. I really have no complaints.

Thank you. I too cannot think of any Trek book I've read where the violence was overdone or inserted for shock value rather than story purposes. I just wondered if anyone disagreed, and I was interested in how writers approach violent scenes, both from a moral (if that's the right word) position and a practical one.

I just want to point out that the shock value of violence can be extremely effective and can add to the amount of tension a villian's actions create. While I think I understand what you are saying, sometimes the shock value involved with acts of violence, if not overdone, can be really effective.

True. I didn't phrase my comment particularly well there...

Yes, violence can often be used for shock tactics while serving a genuine- and highly effective, as you say- story purpose. What I should have written was that I've not encountered a Trek book where violence is thrown in for the sake of violence rather than serving to carry the story or define character.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

With respect to Delta Vega....I agreed with you when I saw the film, but conversations here and on other boards have swayed my thinking to accept what the writers intended for the film....for their to be a planet in the Vulcan system with the name Delta Vega. Very likely the planet near Vulcan we see in STMP.

Although why a planet in the Vulcan system would be named "Delta Vega"... (confused)

I like to think its the third planet in the Vulcan system as it is depicted in Star Charts. That model of the system has Vulcan, T'Khut (its companion) and a frozen third planet. I know the Star Charts say it's class-C but I now prefer to think it's class-P and that this is "Delta Vega". Not to be confused with the "true" Delta Vega which TOS placed as beyond the Federation.

 

[Sci]

With respect to Delta Vega....I agreed with you when I saw the film, but conversations here and on other boards have swayed my thinking to accept what the writers intended for the film....for their to be a planet in the Vulcan system with the name Delta Vega. Very likely the planet near Vulcan we see in STMP.

Although why a planet in the Vulcan system would be named "Delta Vega"... (confused)

I like to think its the third planet in the Vulcan system as it is depicted in Star Charts. That model of the system has Vulcan, T'Khut (its companion) and a frozen third planet. I know the Star Charts say it's class-C but I now prefer to think it's class-P and that this is "Delta Vega". Not to be confused with the "true" Delta Vega which TOS placed as beyond the Federation.

The problem -- as Christopher elegantly explained -- is that for Vulcan to be as large as what we saw in the Delta Vegan sky, Delta Vega would basically have to be in orbit of Vulcan. But for it to be in orbit of Vulcan, it would have to be exposed to the same levels of heat from the Vulcan star as its planet -- meaning that it couldn't be the frozen wasteland we saw in the film. It is physically impossible for an ice planet to be that close to a hot desert planet.

 

[Jbarney]

Been thinking about this a little more and have come up with two more examples of where trek writers handled violence in a story very well. It's there, its explored, but it was not over done.

1. I have not read the story in years, but Shakedown by Peter David had John Harriman being tortured/interrogated (sort of) by Romulans. A very good story that was not over the top.

2. The second instance was at the end of the A Time To Series. Its where Riker has gone missing and Troi is interrogating the Tezwa general. Troi was emotionally drained and exhausted. She thought she'd lost her future husband. So while she has the Tezwa general in her custody she considered using (and to a certain extent did use) variations of cruel tactics to get the information she needed. If I remember the narrative correctly it kind of scared her just what she was willing to do to find out what had happened to Riker.

 

[David Mack]

2. The second instance was at the end of the A Time To Series. Its where Riker has gone missing and Troi is interrogating the Tezwa general. Troi was emotionally drained and exhausted. She thought she'd lost her future husband. So while she has the Tezwa general in her custody she considered using (and to a certain extent did use) variations of cruel tactics to get the information she needed. If I remember the narrative correctly it kind of scared her just what she was willing to do to find out what had happened to Riker.

One other detail that many readers of A Time to Heal often fail to take into account is that after Troi crosses certain lines in her desire to elicit the answer she wants, her efforts fail. She winds up having compromised her principles and has nothing to show for it. That's why her sequence ends with her collapsed in General Minza's vacated cell; her guilt will become her prison.

Likewise, after General Minza is handed over to his own people, who use even more brutal tactics that end up killing him, in the end the effort proves futile. General Minza never provides any actionable intelligence.

The point of those sequences in A Time to Heal was not to justify or glorify torture, but to illustrate that as a means of acquiring usable intelligence it is worthless, and its true effect is to debase the person who employs it. It is a self-defeating tactic that has only one true purpose: to terrorize others into submission.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

2. The second instance was at the end of the A Time To Series. Its where Riker has gone missing and Troi is interrogating the Tezwa general. Troi was emotionally drained and exhausted. She thought she'd lost her future husband. So while she has the Tezwa general in her custody she considered using (and to a certain extent did use) variations of cruel tactics to get the information she needed. If I remember the narrative correctly it kind of scared her just what she was willing to do to find out what had happened to Riker.

One other detail that many readers of A Time to Heal often fail to take into account is that after Troi crosses certain lines in her desire to elicit the answer she wants, her efforts fail. She winds up having compromised her principles and has nothing to show for it. That's why her sequence ends with her collapsed in General Minza's vacated cell; her guilt will become her prison.

Likewise, after General Minza is handed over to his own people, who use even more brutal tactics that end up killing him, in the end the effort proves futile. General Minza never provides any actionable intelligence.

The point of those sequences in A Time to Heal was not to justify or glorify torture, but to illustrate that as a means of acquiring usable intelligence it is worthless, and its true effect is to debase the person who employs it. It is a self-defeating tactic that has only one true purpose: to terrorize others into submission.

...and in my opinion that was communicated very effectively.

 

[James Swallow]

I don't think there are any other writers on here who's idea of a good night out has involved sword-fights in bars

Well, there was this time when I was out drinking with Mack "The Knife" and "Snake Doctor" Ward...

 

[PaulSimpson]

^ and amazingly lived to tell the tale!

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^ and amazingly lived to tell the tale!

All right, you two. We are intriqued. Tell all.

 

[captcalhoun]

i don't think any Trek novel has ever gone OTT in its depiction of sex or violence and my 'more please' comment earlier on was nothing more than a joke.