What pet peeves do you have about trek books?

[Steve Roby]

On the subject of Number One (the character, not the euphemism):

Sometimes it just seems like, in all the Pike-centric other tie-ins, she's treated like a piece of furniture

Agreed mucho. I wonder if this is because the writers are afraid to do anything much with the character, believing that her main attribute is to be mystical?

I can't believe the mystery would have carried the character very far had she become a fixture of Star Trek after the pilot. Well into the first season, we'd probably have found out her first, middle and last names, her favorite color and half a dozen odd personal habits. But since she never made it past her first appearance, writers are left thinking that her name was supposed to remain a secret. Secret from whom? Didn't she tell Starfleet? That way lies silliness...

I agree completely. The Early Voyages comic didn't treat it as something mysterious, it just gave her the name Robbins and moved on. There's nothing whatsoever in "The Cage" to suggest the use of "Number One" is any different from Picard using it for Riker.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I agree completely. The Early Voyages comic didn't treat it as something mysterious, it just gave her the name Robbins and moved on. There's nothing whatsoever in "The Cage" to suggest the use of "Number One" is any different from Picard using it for Riker.

Of course, it was also a running gag that we never learned her first name, so...

 

[Christopher]

^There was an issue that had part of her first name revealed as "Eure-," and I can't think of anything that could be other than "Eureka." Unless she's named after the French department of Eure-et-Loir.

 

[lstyer]

And if we were talking about real societies, that would be a completely valid point. But Christopher is talking about a fictional society being, in theory, more "mature" than modern society, so I doubt any reasonable person is going to be too offended.

Hell, no person reasonable or otherwise is likely to be offended, but implicit in the idea of a fictional society being more "mature" than existing societies is the idea that societies are not inherently equally "mature," which is, to some degree at least, an endorsement of ethnocentrism in favor of whichever society one judges as the more mature. Unless, I suppose, we decide that all coexisting societies are equally "mature" at any given moment, and are only more or less "mature" than past societies or theoretical future societies, respectively, which, I suppose, might sidestep the ethnocentrism complaint.

Having said that, I've often felt that the Federation is more than a little ethnocentric (or, if you well, "Federation-centric") in its thinking and evaluation of other cultures, and more than a little self-congratulatory about its supposedly greater levels of "social maturity" than its ancestors' so-called "primitive" societies.

Absolutely it is, but I'm not sure that being ethnocentric in one's evaluations of other cultures is necessarily an evil. I'm not sure that a society that works on the principle that any and every societal or culture arrangement is equally valid would even be viable as an ongoing concern. If "ethnocentrism" is bad, then is it not also bad to chide someone for practicing ethnocentrism, which might, after all, be a reflection of his culture? If so, then isn't ethnocentrism as valid as "not-enthnocentrism"?

, and more than a little self-congratulatory about its supposedly greater levels of "social maturity" than its ancestors' so-called "primitive" societies.

Yeah, that part always comes across as a little tacky to me. Even if it's true, its "social maturity" is a product of its ancestors' more "primitive" societies. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

^There was an issue that had part of her first name revealed as "Eure-," and I can't think of anything that could be other than "Eureka." Unless she's named after the French department of Eure-et-Loir.

Perhaps a variant spelling of "Eurydice"?

Of course, there's also the possibility that she has a name that we wouldn't recognize today. Three centuries from now, who's to say what kind of names people will have. The English language will evolve in the next three centuries (though something like "City on the Edge" suggests otherwise); names will evolve (and be invented), too.

 

[Tara]

I enjoy the challenge of writing fan stories about her without revealing her name. But it does get a bit hairy when you're writing scenarios where she's no longer Pike's XO, because every time you hail another ship or a planet, you have to get around it. I still like the throwaway line in The Rift about it being unpronounceable. It adds to the character's mystery. Byrne actually was given the chance to give her a canonical name in Crew and chose not to, which I found interesting.

BrotherBenny: I like the Ilyrian backstory in Vulcan's Glory best, personally. Especially in her relationship with Cait Barry, where you see how she chafes against the idea of being considered "perfect", and it explores the downsides of being bred to someone else's idea of perfection. How she gets bored and restless when she's not challenged by her work. Also, I really like how Fontana explored how in her professional life she's confident, but she has issues in her personal life and is as vulnerable as any other person when it comes to her emotions and relationships.

 

[Christopher]

And if we were talking about real societies, that would be a completely valid point. But Christopher is talking about a fictional society being, in theory, more "mature" than modern society, so I doubt any reasonable person is going to be too offended.

Hell, no person reasonable or otherwise is likely to be offended, but implicit in the idea of a fictional society being more "mature" than existing societies is the idea that societies are not inherently equally "mature," which is, to some degree at least, an endorsement of ethnocentrism in favor of whichever society one judges as the more mature.

Since this usage seems to be getting attributed to me, I want to clarify once more that I wasn't the one to use "mature" in this context -- I was challenging the assumptions of the poster who did use that term to refer to societies. Or rather, I wasn't talking about societies so much as disagreeing with that poster's assumption that maturity in general entailed complete rejection of profanity.

Byrne actually was given the chance to give her a canonical name in Crew and chose not to, which I found interesting.

It's not canonical if isn't onscreen. If he had given her a name in that comic, it wouldn't be any more canonical than the name she was given in the Early Voyages comic (Eure-something Robbins) or the various names given or implied in various novels (Timothea Rogers, Morgan Lefler, something unpronounceable and alien, or "Number One" actually being her name). It would've just been one more conjecture, no more authoritative than any other.

 

[Tara]

It's not canonical if isn't onscreen. If he had given her a name in that comic, it wouldn't be any more canonical than the name she was given in the Early Voyages comic (Eure-something Robbins) or the various names given or implied in various novels (Timothea Rogers, Morgan Lefler, something unpronounceable and alien, or "Number One" actually being her name). It would've just been one more conjecture, no more authoritative than any other.

I just meant that the licence holder gave Byrne the option of naming her (his messageboard post was I think what mentioned "canonical" but I could be mis-remembering), and he declined. I know only what airs is canon (tho it's taking some getting used to going back to that definition after years spent in Doctor Who fandom, where the lines are a lot more blurred).

I cannot tell you how happy I am that Timothea Rogers isn't Number One in the published version of FFOS.

 

[Mysterion]

I guess these tend be more fan-fic pet peeves than pro-novel pet-peeves, but still St literature so...

1) New characters who are reletives of already established characters (i.e. Kirk's great-grandson, etc.)

2) Having a ship captain be the same ethnicity as the name of his/her ship (i.e. Captain Helmut Albrecht of the USS Berlin, or having Chekov getting command of the USS Moscow, etc.)

 

[JustKate]

^ Oh, wow, they really do that (matching captain's ethnicity to the ship's name)? Euw.

 

[Mysterion]

^ Oh, wow, they really do that (matching captain's ethnicity to the ship's name)? Euw.

Have seen it more than once.

Right up there on the Anooyance Scale with Peter David re-naming Arex's race the "Triexians" (cuz they got three legs and three arms! get it? huh? get it?).

 

[Timo]

That's just keeping with the TAS tradition: a character who shifts shape is "Vendorian", a character who looks like an upright lioness is "Caitian", a living tree is a "Phylosian"...

I'm sure it's just the Universal Translator at work. Every alien species out there probably calls itself "human" anyway, or "people" or "us" or whatever. So the UT has to get a bit creative. Thus, the English translation of the catfolk name for themselves comes out as "Caitian", while the Caitian translation of us sounds like the local word for "Mangymonkeyite".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JarodRussell]

I guess these tend be more fan-fic pet peeves than pro-novel pet-peeves, but still St literature so...

1) New characters who are reletives of already established characters (i.e. Kirk's great-grandson, etc.)

2) Having a ship captain be the same ethnicity as the name of his/her ship (i.e. Captain Helmut Albrecht of the USS Berlin, or having Chekov getting command of the USS Moscow, etc.)

Kirk has a great-grandson in the novels?

 

[BrotherBenny]

I guess these tend be more fan-fic pet peeves than pro-novel pet-peeves, but still St literature so...

1) New characters who are reletives of already established characters (i.e. Kirk's great-grandson, etc.)

2) Having a ship captain be the same ethnicity as the name of his/her ship (i.e. Captain Helmut Albrecht of the USS Berlin, or having Chekov getting command of the USS Moscow, etc.)

Kirk has a great-grandson in the novels?

Don't you actually read the whole post? he said fan-fic peeves.

 

[Defcon]

I guess these tend be more fan-fic pet peeves than pro-novel pet-peeves, but still St literature so...

1) New characters who are reletives of already established characters (i.e. Kirk's great-grandson, etc.)

2) Having a ship captain be the same ethnicity as the name of his/her ship (i.e. Captain Helmut Albrecht of the USS Berlin, or having Chekov getting command of the USS Moscow, etc.)

Kirk has a great-grandson in the novels?

AFAIK he hasn't. His father, his mother and his nephews were in novels, but that's pretty much it I think.

If you read Myterion's post closely I guess he is talking more about fan fiction, so why he brings it up in a thread on Trek books is his own little secret.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Kirk has a great-grandson in the novels?

In a Malibu DS9 special (written by Mark Lenard, no less), there's a young Jamie Kirk, and she drops hints throughout the issue about her family lineage.

I think we were supposed to assume that T'Kir, in Debt of Honor, was Kirk's half-Romulan daughter.

 

[JoeZhang]

Not a peeve as such, but I'd love to see what a radically different type of writer such as Garth Ennis could do with trek in a one-off story.

 

[Paris]

Lots of "Fooks" and "Idjit's" and lots of bloody gore i'd imagine. I love Mr. Ennis, but unless he already has a love of trek, I could see him tearing trek to shreads. Garth seems to hate the very idea of superheroes (he has said this in several interviews before) as you can see by what he constantly does to them in The Boys, as well as what he did to Wolverine at Marvel (in his first Punisher ongoing series after his original mini with Steve Dillon) and Green Lantern over at DC (in his amazing Hitman series). This is what he does to characters who exist in his chosen medium.

That being said...If Mr. Ennis does indeed love the trek, I could see him penning some amazing stories. I'd love to see him examine war in the Trek universe. There have been several wars, and Garth could probably bring us some really poignant stories. He is a master of his craft, and having any novel by him, trek or other, would be most welcome .

 

[JoeZhang]

Lots of "Fooks" and "Idjit's" and lots of bloody gore i'd imagine. I love Mr. Ennis, but unless he already has a love of trek, I could see him tearing trek to shreads. Garth seems to hate the very idea of superheroes (he has said this in several interviews before) as you can see by what he constantly does to them in The Boys, as well as what he did to Wolverine at Marvel (in his first Punisher ongoing series after his original mini with Steve Dillon) and Green Lantern over at DC (in his amazing Hitman series). This is what he does to characters who exist in his chosen medium.

Sure - but he can write them straight, he did an excellent story with Superman in his Hitman series. However, I wouldn't want him to play it straight - all of the current authors do that.

 

[Paris]

^Maybe a story where he finds a planet full of Janeways, and proceeds to kill them in every way imaginable.

Oh...the horrible things he could do