Vixen does A Time to Heal or: A veritable tidal wave of activity

[Sci]

I agree that it's unrealistic to expect that the disappearance of a former President of the United Federation of Planets will not eventually be detected and brought to the attention of the general public.

well, one of Australia's Prime Minister did disappear off in the sea while he when swimming, and he wasn't even an ex-PM then.

Yeah, I know. And his disappearance was noticed almost immediately, wasn't it?

I'm not arguing that it's realistic to necessarily expect that word of Zife's assassination will get out -- though it may be, given that that reporter from Trill was able to put it together -- but the idea that no one would ever notice that a former president was just not around anymore is kinda silly.

 

[Baerbel Haddrell]

Zife`s assassination will get out, it is just a question of when. Contrary to other secrets too many people are involved, too many people know about it. One day, one might talk, one might let something slip that will unravel the plot.

When that happens, the consequences will be enormous. That alone could easily cover another set of “A Time to…” books. Hopefully it will come to that.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

How many people really know what happened to Zife, Azernal, and Quafina? Bacco knows in the broad, general sense what happened. Ross most certainly knows. L'Haan, Zeitsev, and Dietz most certainly know. Would it be a safe assumption that Nechayev and Nakamura "know", either in the broad, general sense or in the way that Ross knows?

The Trill reporter knows the real reason behind the resignation, but I don't think she ever figured out that Zife and co. were dead.

 

[David Mack]

I agree that it's unrealistic to expect that the disappearance of a former President of the United Federation of Planets will not eventually be detected and brought to the attention of the general public.

But there's nothing in Heal or Articles to prevent Section 31 from just periodically trotting out an impersonator of some sort to reassure the populace should another reporter start to wonder why no one can find the former President.

Exactly. This is how I would have preferred it be handled. I suppose it still could, actually.

Of those involved in the ousting of Zife & Co., only the Section 31 operatives and Ross knew what was really going to happen. Everyone else had been assured that the deposed trio of Zife, Azernal & Quafina were being sent into comfortable exile. There's no reason an impostor couldn't deliver a speech via subspace or make a photo-op appearance now and then. Who's going to demand a DNA test on a former president?

Although Azernal *does* somewhat fit the streotypes of Dick Cheney...

You ever seen the Frontline documentary Cheney's Law? Koll Azernal is Dick Cheney. And Karl Rove and Karen Hughes and Donald Rumsfeld all in one.

Precisely. Azernal is a composite character. (Don't forget to add in Douglas Feith, John Yoo, and a few more neocons.)

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Heal and Articles and Kill (but with Kill to a slightly lesser extent) are the sort of Trek novels I really enjoy, the ones that have that mix of politics and action (often the two are one and the same). As I went through Kill, for example, there was a countdown clock à la 24 in my mind's eye, updating itself every time a character mentioned how long until the Klingons would attack. And in Heal there was mental images of closeups of the events as the story would unfold, similar to BSG. When reading the part with Azernal almost screaming at Quafina about the shipment being highjacked, I could actually feel the tension and seriousness. The whole thing drew me in, so that my stomach sort of caved in when thinking about the consequences. If I can get through a book without a "Meh...yeah, okay" type of thought, then that's pretty good. Heal definitely wasn't a "Meh...yeah, okay" book.