Coridan Prime has had a rough time of it. At one point a potential member of the Federation ranking right up there with Earth or Tellar or Vulcan or Andor, technologically quite advanced if politically unstable, the Romulan War hit the planet hard: the Romulan suicide attack of 2154 devastated the planet, and in turn triggered a century of devastating wars which depopulated the system. Eventually Coridan recovered, by the late 24th century becoming an important Federation system.
But then, the Borg came.
The description in the novels of what exactly happened to Coridan is contradictory. The planet is described as having been saved from glassing by Hernandez' intervention, along with Qo'Nos and Andor and Vulcan and Beta Rigel, and Christopher's Watching the Clock mentions scientists from the Khitomer allies visiting the Coridan Engineering Institute. This would suggest that, like those other four worlds and perhaps also Ardana, Coridan was heavily damaged but still basically intact, inhabited and with its civilization still functioning. But then, in her post-invasion speech Bacco mentioned Coridan in the same breath as worlds like Risa and Ramatis which we know to have been sterilized, and novels like A Singular Destiny and the same Watching the Clock seem to imply that Coridan was wrecked to a greater extent, with Coridanite Starfleet officers left to cope with the sight of their world's devastation (destruction?) and descriptions of the surface as "ruined".
Have I drawn the wrong implications? Is Coridan still inhabited if battered? Or has it been depopulated? It occurs to me that unlike those four worlds, Coridan Prime has already been battered, and the Borg attack just pushed an already marginalized civilization over the edge.
Thoughts?
But then, the Borg came.
The description in the novels of what exactly happened to Coridan is contradictory. The planet is described as having been saved from glassing by Hernandez' intervention, along with Qo'Nos and Andor and Vulcan and Beta Rigel, and Christopher's Watching the Clock mentions scientists from the Khitomer allies visiting the Coridan Engineering Institute. This would suggest that, like those other four worlds and perhaps also Ardana, Coridan was heavily damaged but still basically intact, inhabited and with its civilization still functioning. But then, in her post-invasion speech Bacco mentioned Coridan in the same breath as worlds like Risa and Ramatis which we know to have been sterilized, and novels like A Singular Destiny and the same Watching the Clock seem to imply that Coridan was wrecked to a greater extent, with Coridanite Starfleet officers left to cope with the sight of their world's devastation (destruction?) and descriptions of the surface as "ruined".
Have I drawn the wrong implications? Is Coridan still inhabited if battered? Or has it been depopulated? It occurs to me that unlike those four worlds, Coridan Prime has already been battered, and the Borg attack just pushed an already marginalized civilization over the edge.
Thoughts?
, did Destiny 100% confirm that Coridan wasn't destroyed? We know Vulcan, Andor, Rigel IV and Qo'noS were saved from total destruction by her intervention, but maybe Coridan wasn't so resilliant in defense. I remember the Starfleet forces at Vulcan confirming explicitly that "Vulcan has been saved", and Andor was confirmed as having made it too. It's implied in "Over a Torrent Sea" that Rigel IV is also in a "still there but damaged" condition. As for Qo'noS, it's been mentioned several times that it was rendered "nearly uninhabitable", so it apparently got a greater pounding than Vulcan or Andor. I assume Coridan was already gone by the time Hernandez managed to pull off her mini Borg civil war. Maybe it had less ships protecting it than the others; perhaps a Borg cube slammed the planet or something. I assume the initial celebration that they saved five planets had a "no, no wait, make that four" moment...
