Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
📚 twenty-nine of 2020: The Peacekeepers, by Gene DeWeese ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #startrek 🖖
A bit of early TNG taking on the Prime Directive. A marked improvement from the last (first) novel, but still obviously at a point where the characters were still being developed.
Book twenty-eight of 2020: Ghost Ship by Diane Carey ⭐️⭐️ #startrek #tng 🖖
Painfully obviously early in the TNG novels (it is the first not adapted from an episode). Characterizations are wildly off base (Riker’s distrust of Data is basically overt racism). Just…oof.
📚 twenty-seven of 2020: Star Trek S.C.E.: Have Tech, Will Travel by Keith R.A. DeCandido, Kevin Dillmore, Christie Golden, Dean Wesley Smith, and Dayton Ward ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A collection of four novellas following the S.C.E. characters. More of Trek’s expanded universe.
📚 twenty-five of 2020: Star Trek S.C.E.: Foundations by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dillmore ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Trek “expanded universe” novel; three short stories and a framing story, all of Scotty’s interactions with the early S.C.E. and tying into TOS episodes.
Today I learned: In at least one appearance, the NCIS ambulance uses a Starfleet Medical logo (seen on the right rear door panel). Now there’s a crossover I didn’t expect!
(Thanks to Ex Astris Scientia for this tidbit! 🖖)
Got out of the habit of my weekly Star Trek: Picard mini-reviews, thanks to the coronavirus stress, but just watched the final episode of the season, and I’m satisfied. Quibbles here and there, sure, but overall, a very good first season, and I’m looking forward to more. 🖖
📚 fourteen of 2020: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A direct prequel to the Picard series, detailing the struggles, triumphs, and travesties of the Romulan relief effort. Also the most politically & socially currently relevant Trek novel I’ve ever read. 🖖
CDC reccommends washing your hands for 20 seconds. You know what takes roughly 20 seconds to say?
“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.”
You’re not required to hum the theme afterwards, but who’s gonna stop you, honestly.
— Monica Marier on Facebook
Star Trek: Picard S01E07: As has been the case, the Borg cube pieces were weaker, but everything on Nepenthe with Troi, Riker, and their adorable daughter Kestra was so strong that this is by far the strongest episode of the season.
A bit of silliness. Very minor spoiler for ST:PIC S01E06.
The Naming of Romulans is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a Romulan must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Pardek, Colius, Donatra or Vrax,
Such as Vreenak or Tomalak, Thei or Rekar—
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Parem, Tal’aura, Karina, Livara—
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a Romulan needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his ears perpendicular,
Or spread out his schemes, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Alidar Jarok, Zhaban, or Telek R’Mor,
Such as Narissa Rizzo, or else Caithlin Dar-
Names that never belong to more than one Romulan.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE ROMULAN HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a Romulan in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
(No, they don’t rhyme. But I limited myself to those named Romulans listed at Memory Alpha, so that’s what you get.)
