DeCandido’s ‘A Singlular Destiny’ follows directly from Mack’s Destiny Trilogy. Then, the main Relauch novelverse moves through the Typhon Pact books.
Ezri Dax starts evolving as she integrates Dax’s former hosts and wrangles them in some earlier DS9 books. But she really takes off as one of the 4 hero captains of Destiny.
For those who want to start the Relaunch books from some of the deep political turning points, Mack’s two books in the ‘Time to…’ series are the key ones. They take place between the TNG movies Insurrection and Nemesis, putting dynamics in play that run right up to the end of the Relaunch novelverse in Coda.
(And yes I’m still grieving the end of the Relauch alternate timeline.)
It’s tricky to know because technology has changed the nature of these jobs significantly, and Star Trek has tended to map to roles as they are, despite projecting further technology.
In the 60s, 70s & 80s, a Yeoman would have held the encryption keys and would have been responsible for interactions with command. (The Comms officer would have had communications engineering and codes, but not necessarily access to the highest command codes.)
Likewise, responsibility for personnel assessment and promotion recommendations among ratings was a senior NCO responsibility that interlinked with the responsibilities of the XO.
It’s easy to portray a lot of these jobs as ‘merely clerical’ and it can be a kind of erasure of the people of colour and women who were in these ratings.
It brings to mind the work of the WW2 Wrens who did all the naval gaming in the UK and in Halifax, modeling, innovating and teaching tactics to UK and allied navies, but who got no credit. Or the women ‘computers’ and code breakers at Bletchley. Their commanding officers got all the credit and they were erased.
DC Fontana was asking science fiction writers with no prior animated series credits to write an episode of TAS to take advantage of an exceptional provision in the writers contract.
There was a writers strike at the time, and at that time the animated writers were in the same union as live-action. The provision existed to enable writers to move media, and Fontana took full advantage as many TOS writers and science fiction writers had never written for animation.
I haven’t seen specifically that Fontana asked Niven to adapt that specific story, but she and Roddenberry clearly were comfortable with his doing so.
This analysis brings to mind the Liaden of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Korval (TM) books.
Liaden society has a profession called quendra that are a mix of accountants, lawyers and commercial adjudicators. It’s also a society based on ‘balance’ counting-coup where everyone, all their lives, is keeping score in everyone else. Even Ferengi might be horrified.
Well, in bringing the Kzinti into Star Trek, Niven has enabled other writers ‘to play with his toys.’
Many novel writers aren’t really comfortable doing this, even if they get downstream royalties/residuals when their creations are used again. Niven by contrast seems to be fine.
Administration does not equal secretary, except in the old British usage where the Secretary to the Prime Minister is what’s now called a Chief of Staff.
A yeoman is one of the most senior NCOs, responsible for communication with command and the admiralty, also responsible for performance assessments of all the enlisted ranks and more junior NCOs.
Not sure I would quite call it petty, but Meta is determined to use whatever market power it has to make sure no government outside the US has jurisdiction.
As they did in Australia, they are trying to put pressure on the national government to back down. They’re a bad actor in the antitrust sense and seem to be determined to demonstrate that.
Which is exactly why there is a strong case that only governments can set the ground rules for platforms like Meta’s, and should.
While local news sources, dependent on Meta, have mixed views on the legislation, there’s a possibility that this behaviour may only serve to motivate Canada’s Parliament to pass further legislation to require internet social media platforms to disseminate and link through news and information during public emergencies in the same way private broadcasters and cable carriers already are.
I think that the presence of writers at cons has gone down significantly actually.
There was a time when every dedicated Trek con I attended would have a panel with a writer. I remember first seeing Peter David that way. It’s what first got me trying the books.
When I look at Mack or Ward’s social media, they’re only doing 2 or 3 regional general science fiction cons per year.
As the paid availability of actors for photos and autographs has increased, we see more of them at cons, with big panels instead of single presenters. It’s however the presentations by writers and production folks that I miss. While one here’s about as much from them through podcasts and featurettes, it’s not the same as in-person.
That was likely added to quell reactions to a woman as a first officer. But the Network had notes even so on how negatively test audiences reacted to Majel Barrett’s Number One.
Roddenberry tried another tack with blonde, beehived, Whitney in a miniskirt as Yeoman Janice Rand. She was supposed to be a woman main character but even that was too much for the executives and she was written out by the end of the first season.
Vonda N McIntyre is one of the strongest Star Trek writers of that era.
She was very successful in writing her own original science fiction novels and short stories. She was a collaborator of Ursula LeGuin and a leader in a group of writers in the Northwest.
The covers from the Vanguard series are phenomenally good. I’m envious.
I came to the series relatively late, and got all the physical books as either used paperbacks or trade-paperback publisher’s reprints. In neither case did the interior station diagrams promised on the covers come included. (I was able to grab them off the internet.) I’m hoping Mack’s starcharts make it into Firestorm in a format that will ensure they make it through to ebooks and reprints.
My spouse still grumbles that DC Fontana shouldn’t have let Niven get away with adapting his story ‘The Soft Weapon’ to become the
TAS episode ‘The Slaver Weapon.’ (They think Niven should have come up with something new for TAS.)
I think it’s all a great deal of fun, and take delight in Lower Decks giving us Kzinti in Starfleet.
Whatever fans of either the Man-Kzin Wars books or Trek may feel about it, Niven himself chose to bring the Kzinti into Star Trek canon.
He continued to own that by writing a piece for the StarTrek.com official site outlining that the Caitian feliniods (M’Ress in TAS, Dr T’Ana in Lower Decks and a background character in Prodigy) are related to the Kzinti. According to Niven, the Caitians split off from the Kzinti and settled on the planet Cait, becoming more scientific in orientation, much like the Romulans and Vulcans separated and diverged.
StillPaisleyCat @ StillPaisleyCat @startrek.website Posts 174Comments 1,314Joined 2 yr. ago
DeCandido’s ‘A Singlular Destiny’ follows directly from Mack’s Destiny Trilogy. Then, the main Relauch novelverse moves through the Typhon Pact books.
Ezri Dax starts evolving as she integrates Dax’s former hosts and wrangles them in some earlier DS9 books. But she really takes off as one of the 4 hero captains of Destiny.
For those who want to start the Relaunch books from some of the deep political turning points, Mack’s two books in the ‘Time to…’ series are the key ones. They take place between the TNG movies Insurrection and Nemesis, putting dynamics in play that run right up to the end of the Relaunch novelverse in Coda.
(And yes I’m still grieving the end of the Relauch alternate timeline.)