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So what you're saying is it really doesn't matter if I pick McDonalds or Taco Bell, that the universe really doesn't care (though to be honest, I don't think I'd pick either, though on a rare occasion I find myself in a mood for a totally unhealthy Double Cheeseburger, I'm more of a Chick-Fil-A guy when it comes to fast food ....but I digress).
Yeah, whether it's the old fashion changing history changes the present story, or the parallel universes created by different decisions we make (or in Star Trek's case, where either one might apply), it obviously creates an interesting story, and suspense as well. On the one hand we see stories like "The City on the Edge of Forever" where they have to repair damage done to the timeline, or something like "Parallels" where we see multiple timelines. Both can give us entertaining stories.
And certainly Echoes is looking like a pretty good story. Though I still have a difficult time wrapping my head around the massive casualties in the one universe where every 2 hours over 2 billion people die. I'm not looking for spoilers, but this is a case where I hope whatever 'fix' they come up with actually undoes all that. I find that kind of casualty account very disturbing (kind of ironic considering I am a big horror/slasher film fan, I suppose even I have my limits).
About 2/3 of the way through (pretty quick for me) and I have to say it's definitely one of the better Voyager novels overall.
One thing I like is anything I think of that could be a weakness they have an answer for. For instance, why there are only subtle differences within the crews of the various universes. They acknowledge that as you get further down the line the differences will increase and I sort of understand, now that I'm reading the story, why they kept the differences more subtle for this particular story.
Also, currently they are trying to find solutions and the authors basically address the two ways Star Trek has handled time travel (at least up to the time when the novel was released, which was the 1990s). One is the 'change the past, change the present' plot device, the other is the creation of the parallel universes when you change the past.
The crews have figured out probably the best way to handle the devastating loss of life (billions each time a phase shift occurs every 2 1/2 hours) is the prevent the disaster from ever occurring in the first place. Which is how I figured they would figure as well. But they need to prevent it from occurring in such a way that they don't just create more parallel universes, half of which will be where the disaster never occurred, and others where it does occur because of the paradox that it needs to occur for them to fix it in the first place.
So they basically decided they need to find a way to change the past in all the timelines so that the change sticks. In essence the old school way of looking at time travel. How do they change history, period, so they can stop the massive loss of life.
Now, I recognize from a physics standpoing that could be problematic. But I give them credit for acknowledging the physics of it all while at the same time reflecting how previous Star Trek shows have treated time travel in various ways. And Star Trek, while it tries to maintain a basis in science, is still fiction. Sometimes they take liberties to advance the story, which I can forgive when it's a good story overall.
I just finished up this book. According to Memory Alpha it takes place in 2373 and it came out in 1998 (#15 in the series). It was probably during the late 2nd season to sometimes during the 3rd season as Kes is still part of the crew. It was written by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Nina Kiriki Hoffman (her only Star Trek novel I believe). I have read novels written by the 1st two writers and usually their books are pretty decent. They are pretty detail oriented and usually seem to consider things we readers might question and this novel is no different.
I'm actually going to give this book an excellent rating. I don't often throw that out but I read it in just over a week (it usually takes 2 to 3 weeks for me to read a book). Also, anything that I thought could have been a weakness the authors seem to have an answer for. As Christopher noted earlier, I kind of wished there was at least one parallel crew with significant differences. And I thought of deducting 'points' for that. But the authors did address that in the novel and after reading the book, I kind of understand why they decided to do what they did. Also the crew discusssed why Voyager was missing in every other universe was because of the actions in the episode "Deadlock" and they acknowledge what happened in the episode was a duplication, but that event created its own parallel universe from that point on.
The solution they came up with also managed to combine different elements of time travel that Star Trek had used up to that point (in 1998), the type where you go back and change history, which changes the present in our own 'prime' timeline, and that where you cause a branching of parallel universes. And that presents its own problem with the solution in that they need to stop the event from ever occurring in the first place. They have to avoid the conundrums of just creating more parallel universes, where the disaster occurs in half, and not in the other half. And they also have to avoid creating a temporal loop if they fail, where they are doomed to do it over and over again.
They basically need to change history permanently, in all parallel universes. The solution they come up involves every ship dumping it's antimatter as they all enter the rift that's created every 2 hours. They figure out there is a subspace rift above the planet in each timeline (and caused the destruction of some of the planets in the parallel universes without a planet). The interaction of that with the planet's new transportation system is what causes the rift to open between universes and they even note, much like a river, it causes all the planets inhabitants to shift one universe over (to the right as they perceive it).
And once they reach the first universe without a planet, the entire planet's population that was on the planet to the 'left' of the first one without a planet (#2410) ends up shifted into the vacuum of space, killing over 2 billion every 2.5 hours. That is a disaster of epic proportions that the crews of the 3 ships we focus on here are equally disturbed by. And it will keep happening every shift, every 2.5 hours, eventually leading to the deaths of trillions.
The authors do a good job of capturing the horror of the crews. Even Tuvok is affected by the magnitude of all those lives. It's unfathomable to think of.
Which is why I was glad the authors created a solution where none of this ends up happening in the first place. There are times when a 'reset' is annoying, but in this case I was glad for it. When they fix the problem, we return to a point to just before they received the first distress call when this all started and this time, nothing happens because the problem was fixed.
The authors also discuss the ethical dilemmas. Basically the crews of all those Voyagers that will detonate their antimatter will cease to exist. They will be sacrificing themselves. But as Neelix noted in one of the universes (and probably all), that is a small price to pay to save billions. And in a paradoxical sense, none of them will be sacrificed since they will all return to a point just before this all starts and continue on their way as if nothing happened. In any event, even after considering other options such as using all the Voyagers to transport the populations that end up in the empty orbit to safe haven (which they figure out is not feasible), they decide that's a small price to pay. And as I noted, they will in a sense not sacrifice anything since they will cease to exist in that timeline.
So, overall, I found it an enjoyable book, and I give the authors kudos for addressing many of the things I could think of that could have been a weakness and basically explaining those away. They are basically letting us know that yes, they had considered those plot lines but decided not to go down their roads. As I noted, it might have been nice to have one very different crew but I can understand why they didn't in this case. But they didn't pretend those things wouldn't occur and they were considered in the story. And while there were thousands of parallel universes (maybe more), they decided to focus their attention on 3 (with 3 adjusted away teams that were on the planet during the shift and ended up on a parallel ship, including the one facing the disaster that ended up with 2 sets of crewmembers, since the crew on that ship had no planet to go down to). It sounds a bit confusing writing it here, but it's really not in the story. They handled things well to make sure the reader knew where they were at any one time.
BTW, I decided to add spoiler codes in case anyone decides to read this novel and their is no overall spoiler code in the thread.
As I apparently said upthread some thirteen(!) years ago, I liked this one a lot; I'm glad to hear it holds up. Usually I find the DWS/KKR team very... workmanlike. Never actively bad, but rarely very interesting either. But this I think is a cut above. Maybe it's down to the added NKH?
As I apparently said upthread some thirteen(!) years ago, I liked this one a lot; I'm glad to hear it holds up. Usually I find the DWS/KKR team very... workmanlike. Never actively bad, but rarely very interesting either. But this I think is a cut above. Maybe it's down to the added NKH?
Yeah, maybe Hoffman added something. I wonder how a trio would write a book together like that. Would each pick a section to work on. Would they brainstorm and one flesh out the actual story. I suppose that would vary with the groupings. We haven't had any 2+ book authors in a while. I think the last partnered books were books written by Andy Mangels and Michael Martin, and Dayton Ward with Kevin Dilmore.
Their explanations could have become boring or overly descriptive, but somehow it worked for the story. They managed to explain things in a way that served the story and make it interesting as well. Part of it was I would think along those lines as well. "I wonder why they didn't do that..." but then they'd answer that in the book and it made sense and served the story.
About 2 or 3 years ago I read another book by the usual duo, The Rings of Tautee, which presented another bit of an ethical dilemma, in that case the Prime Directive. They also presented the possible beginnings of how the interpretation of the PD would change by the time of TNG into a more strict interpretation. But that was a pretty good story I thought as well, though not as good as Echoes.
The PD makes a brief appearance here as well as they consider any PD implications, but Captain Janeway quickly dismisses it. First because the planet sent a distress signal, making the PD moot. It's revealed the planet's inhabitants are aware of interstellar life (even though they hadn't had much contact with other life, they know it exists) and are in the early stages of warp development. I imagine the authors had a pretty big story to tackle and probably wanted to get the PD out of the way, address it and move on. So I guess they figured make it a post-warp development society that had asked for help so they can focus on the aspects of the story they wanted to deal with.
And Janeway basically says even if the PD did apply she couldn't just let billions of people die every 2 hours. I suppose you could argue the Temporal Prime Directive might play some role as well (though that may not have come up in the show until after they wrote the novel). But I somehow thing Janeway would say to hell with that as well. And what she did, you could argue, repaired the timeline. And we're talking about the lives of billions. That's just a staggering amount of death. Starfleet would be hard-pressed to justify allowing that kind of death to continue when you have a way to stop it.
It's a bit scary to think about. Imagining shifting to a universe where Earth didn't exist. All the billions of lives on Earth just shifting where they are to the vacuum of space and dying. Then repeat every 2 1/2 hours for every Earth in every parallel universe.
Yeah, maybe Hoffman added something. I wonder how a trio would write a book together like that. Would each pick a section to work on. Would they brainstorm and one flesh out the actual story. I suppose that would vary with the groupings. We haven't had any 2+ book authors in a while. I think the last partnered books were books written by Andy Mangels and Michael Martin, and Dayton Ward with Kevin Dilmore.
Their explanations could have become boring or overly descriptive, but somehow it worked for the story. They managed to explain things in a way that served the story and make it interesting as well. Part of it was I would think along those lines as well. "I wonder why they didn't do that..." but then they'd answer that in the book and it made sense and served the story.
About 2 or 3 years ago I read another book by the usual duo, The Rings of Tautee, which presented another bit of an ethical dilemma, in that case the Prime Directive. They also presented the possible beginnings of how the interpretation of the PD would change by the time of TNG into a more strict interpretation. But that was a pretty good story I thought as well, though not as good as Echoes.
The PD makes a brief appearance here as well as they consider any PD implications, but Captain Janeway quickly dismisses it. First because the planet sent a distress signal, making the PD moot. It's revealed the planet's inhabitants are aware of interstellar life (even though they hadn't had much contact with other life, they know it exists) and are in the early stages of warp development. I imagine the authors had a pretty big story to tackle and probably wanted to get the PD out of the way, address it and move on. So I guess they figured make it a post-warp development society that had asked for help so they can focus on the aspects of the story they wanted to deal with.
And Janeway basically says even if the PD did apply she couldn't just let billions of people die every 2 hours. I suppose you could argue the Temporal Prime Directive might play some role as well (though that may not have come up in the show until after they wrote the novel). But I somehow thing Janeway would say to hell with that as well. And what she did, you could argue, repaired the timeline. And we're talking about the lives of billions. That's just a staggering amount of death. Starfleet would be hard-pressed to justify allowing that kind of death to continue when you have a way to stop it.
It's a bit scary to think about. Imagining shifting to a universe where Earth didn't exist. All the billions of lives on Earth just shifting where they are to the vacuum of space and dying. Then repeat every 2 1/2 hours for every Earth in every parallel universe.
Voyages of Imagination says that Dean plotted the novel, especially the timeline mechanics, Nina did the description and the aliens, Kristine did the dialogue, Dean did the final pass that pulled it all together and filled in the gaps. He also handled the rewrites after notes from Pocket and Paramount.
The 3rd has no planet, but every 2 hours or so an entire population of a planet just appears in the shape of a planet and swiftly dies in the vacuum of space.
Well, yes and no. Since they create the explosion that ends the cycle, they prevent it from ever occurring in the first place so then no one dies (I was actually happy about that in this case...sometimes 'resets' annoy me, but billions of deaths in that fashion actually bothered me, even though I realize it's fiction.
I remember reading it on a school bus during a field trip... I want to say it was seventh or eighth grade.
I could honestly keep going with this - my collection started with TNG’s Survivors, which I picked up at like... age seven from a bookstore that’s been closed for like twenty, maybe almost twenty-five years now. I remember reading Unification during a third grade sustained silent reading period, at a point where my collection was small enough I carried the whole thing in my backpack to school each day, I got like the first seven or so Voyager novels in one go for a birthday I’m pretty sure was still single digits...
And here I am now, poking my mid-thirties with a stick. Someone make the passage of time stop, I don’t like this.
(though to be honest, I don't think I'd pick either, though on a rare occasion I find myself in a mood for a totally unhealthy Double Cheeseburger, I'm more of a Chick-Fil-A guy when it comes to fast food 
....but I digress). 
