Lt. Uhura
Mr. Spock
Lt. Sulu
Dr. McCoy
Lt. Arif Ben-Haim
At this point in time, shortly after the Enterprise
crew's victory over the renegade Romulan, Nero, in
"The Vengeance of Nero",
officials in Starfleet are debating whether the battlefield
promotions given the cadet crewmembers should be made
permanent or not.
On page 4, Chekov identifies the
source of the distress signal as the Marr-i-nul system. This
is the first mention of this system in Star Trek.
Page 5 refers to both Sulu and Chekov as lieutenants, but
Chekov should still be an ensign at this point. However,
Chekov is then referred to as an ensign on page 28.
On page 13, Scotty exclaims, "By Wallace's bleedin'
underwear!" This appears to be an original exclamation of
Scotty's. "Wallace" may refer to the legendary William
Wallace (c. 1270-1305), a Scottish knight who was a leader
of the First War of Scottish Independence against England.
| On page 23, Sulu starts to tell of
a battle 100 years before the Shogunate of Japan that took place south of Edo before
Chekov cuts him off with a threat to tell his own story of
his great-great-great-great grandfather Boris as a model for
one of the crowd in Repin's Reply of the Zaporozhian
Cossacks. Edo is an old name for
Tokyo, Japan, which
was the center of the Shogunate period of the nation's
history (1600-1868). I have been unable to identify what
battle Sulu is referring to a hundred years before then.
Chekov is referring to Ilya Repin's 1891 painting fully-titled
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan
Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire. |
 |
Page 28 reveals that one of the Academy courses that Kirk
enrolled in and aced was Interstellar Battle Theory and
Practice.
Lt. Sulu is given command of the ship for the first time on
page 35. However, he later says in
Star Trek Into Darkness
that that is his first time being given the conn when
Kirk heads down to the surface of Kronos with Spock and
Uhura.
On page 37, the bawdy song Scotty is singing appears to be
an original ballad, though he claims it is an old sailors'
chantey from
Glasgow.
On page 39, Scotty remarks that the Enterprise
and the Eparthaa are "practically within
caber toss of each other." The caber toss is a traditional
Scottish athletic competition in which participants toss a
heavy 19-ft pole (usually a tree trunk) for distance.
On page 40, Kirk makes a remark to Scotty about not wanting
to transport into a hydrology conduit when beaming over to
the alien Eparthaa. In
"The
Vengeance of Nero", Scotty and Kirk
did a transwarp beam from Delta Vega to the Enterprise,
with Scotty ending up inside a water conduit, almost
drowning before Kirk is able to spring a release door on the
pipe.
On page 41, in discussion with Kirk and McCoy, Spock makes a
comparison between human relationships and the relationships
between subatomic particles and waveforms, with those of
subatomics coming out as more logical. Spock is making a
sort-of insult to his human friends, what with concepts of
subatomics such as wave-particle duality and the uncertainty
principle and quantum field theory seeming bizarre to most
people in the macro world. Kirk tells Spock he needs to do
more work in chaos theory, "You'd be surprised at the
analogies that crop up."
Chaos theory is an actual field of study in mathematics,
physics, and other areas of science, concerning the
seemingly-random states of disorder that can be found to
actually be governed by deterministic laws related to even
the most minor conditions of the subject's environment.
The book introduces two new,
non-Federation worlds, SiBor and DiBor, a dual planetary
system.
On page 57, Lt. Uhura enjoys a meal of nyoma choma, ugali,
and curried mung beans. Nyoma choma
and ugali are traditional Kenyan dishes (barbecued meat and
maize flour porridge, respectively). Curried mung beans are
an East Asian/Indian dish.
On page 58, Uhura concedes that Spock's understanding of
human relationships has recently improved from his previous
term of "incomprehensible" to just "bewildering".
On pages 72-73, Scotty and Ben-Haim are having a
disagreement about the best brand of Scotch, Scotty
preferring Inverness Gold and Ben-Haim Loch Kilarney aged 62
years. These both appear to be fictitious brands based in
actual locations in Scotland (Inverness
and Loch Kilarney).
On pages 78-79, the Enterprise
computer gives Kirk a ship's status report when he awakens
from his sleep shift in his quarters. One of the items of
status is that Ensign M'parl is in sickbay with moderate
intestinal flare-up due to hairballs. The ensign's name and
reference to hairballs would imply that M'parl is a Caitian,
a felinoid member species of the Federation. In episodes of
Star Trek: The Animated Series, a female Caitian
named Lt. M'ress served aboard the Enterprise
during the final two years of the 5-year mission. The
novel's author, Foster, was also the author of the ten
Star Trek Log books that adapted the animated series
episodes to novella format, so he was very familiar with
M'ress and he may have had a desire to include M'ress, or at
least a Caitian stand-in, in this novel.
On pages 80-81, Sulu performs his fencing
practice with an épée in the ship's gymnasium. An épée is
the largest of three thrusting weapons used in the sport of
fencing (the other two being the foil and the sabre). Sulu
is seen to be an accomplished fencer in
The Assassination Game
and "The
Vengeance of Nero" (and also in the original TV
series episode "The Naked Time").
The gymnasium is able to holo-project opponents for
Sulu to face off against. He chooses projections of
Richelieu's men from Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel, The
Three Musketeers. In the aforementioned
"The Naked Time" TV episode, the intoxication caused by the
polywater contamination from Psi 2000 caused Sulu to think he
was the reincarnation of D'Artagnan, the swashbuckling
protagonist of the novel.
On page 83, Sulu uses the French fencing term en garde,
meaning "on your guard".
On page 84, Sulu tells Irouth that maybe they can try
practicing with a wakizashi tomorrow. A wakizashi is a short
sword that was traditionally used by Japanese samurai.
On page 87, Chekov is astonished at the skill Nathtal has
picked up so quickly in the game of chess, saying, "How in
Gogol's name did you do it?" and she responds that she used a
variation on the Khalinkov strategy. "Gogol" refers to
Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), a Russian playwright and
novelist. I have been unable to identify a person by the
name of Khalinkov in association with chess, though
it sounds like a Russian name and there have been a number
of Russian master chess players. Possibly, Khalinkov is a chess
master at some point in the future.
On page 91, the Enterprise
encounters an old Voyager probe, which comes in handy later in
the novel. The ancient Voyager probe
Voyager VI appeared in the original timeline in
Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
On page 93, Kirk reflects on the Starfleet administration
buildings in San
Francisco (where Starfleet Command is located), the
roofed-over south
Manhattan, and the
Colosseum in
Rome.
On page 98, McCoy remarks to Spock, "There's an old saying:
The only thing in Einsteinian space that can travel faster
than light is gossip." This, of course, is only an "old
saying" in the Star Trek universe, it's first known
appearance being here. "Einsteinian
space" refers generally to Albert Einstein's theory of
relativity, part of which is that the speed of light is a
constant (186,000 mi/s) and that nothing with mass can reach
that speed.
On page 107, McCoy remarks about the effusive gratitude of
the Perenoreans, "Thanking-est people I ever saw. You'd
almost think they were from the South." He is referring to
the mid-south-to-south-eastern states of the United States,
sometimes acclaimed for the politeness and hospitality of its
inhabitants. McCoy was born and raised in the South.
On page 162, Perenorean leaderesque Taell switches from
speaking SiBoronaan to Federation Standard. Federation
Standard has been mentioned on rare occasions in the past in
the Star Trek universe, seeming to be a form of, or
derivation from, English.
On page 163, Uhura tells Kirk of "Procession of the Nobles"
in the Rimsky-Korsakov opera, Mlada.
Mlada
is an actual 1892 opera-ballet by the Russian composer Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) with
"Procession of the Nobles" a musical composition in it.
On page 169, Kirk mentions a past planetary incident on
Vregon VI. This is the first mention of this world in
Star Trek.
On page 173, Spock and Uhura gaze up at a display of the
night sky above Teleris lake on Cuoulphon IV on the ceiling
of his quarters. This is the first
mention of this world in Star Trek.
Chapter 10 through the end of the book take place 4 months
later.
Admiral Yamashiro dresses down Kirk for his ill-handled
placement of the Perenorean colonists.
This is the first appearance of the male Admiral
Yamashiro, but a female character named Dr. Kelly Yamashiro
appeared in the TNG era (24th Century) in the ST video game
Hidden Evil. Perhaps the doctor is the
great-great granddaughter of the Admiral.
Admiral Yamashiro suggests that some
Starfleet officials would like to see Kirk keelhauled for
his actions. Keelhauling was a form of punishment (sometimes
resulting in death) for sailors in the days of sailing ships,
wherein the sufferer would be dragged on a rope across the
length or breadth of the undership of the ship, scraping him
against the hull and its barnacles, resulting in serious
lacerations and potential drowning.
Yamashiro claims that the JAG are likely hunting for the
proper charges to level at Kirk. JAG
stands for Judge Advocate General, the branch of the U.S.
military (and of Starfleet) that dispenses justice to
military personnel accused of breaking military law. The JAG
was mentioned in the ST episode "Court Martial" and ST: TNG
episode "The Measure of a Man" and also in a number of ST
novels and comics.
On page 190, Scotty exclaims, "Help ma boab!" This is a
Scottish phrase that refers to an item owned by one party
but needing the assistance of another party to use it. This
is the situation the SiBoronaans find themselves in with
regard to the inventions and cultural innovations the
Perenoreans have given them.
On page 216, Specialist Wissell of the food replcator
department on the Enterprise
remarks, "I suppose my team can manage without me for
one morning. Escoffier knows they've done so before."
Escoffier is Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), a famous
French chef and restaurateur.
On page 227, McCoy treats crewman Harper for a cut to his
calf. Possibly, this is Ensign Harper, seen in the original
series episode "The Ultimate Computer" and a couple of John
Byrne's Star Trek: New Visions comics. He also
appeared in the novel A Choice of Catastrophes,
where he is given the first name of Ali.
On page 244, Spock muses to Kirk that the current situation
of the Perenorean effect on the
crewmembers is more complex than the Kobayashi Maru
simulation. This refers to the no-win Kobayashi Maru
scenario that all command-track cadets at Starfleet Academy
were required to take and which Kirk "defeated" by cheating,
i.e. reprogramming the simulation.
Page 251 reveals that there are touch-coded drawers at the
bridge consoles concealing phasers for the use of bridge
personnel in the event an enemy force enters the bridge. It
is also stated that if unauthorized persons carried weapons
in the turbolift, it would lock up and sound an alarm.
On page 260, Uhura, under the influence of the
Perenorean mist, is singing softly to herself on the bridge.
Uhura is known to sing as a hobby in the original timeline
in the "Charlie X" episode of the original TV series and in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
On page 261, Kirk tells Spock, "You need to calm down. Take
it easy. Lean back and smell the Felaran roses." In the
ST: Voyager episode "Parturition", Neelix remarked
that his life before Voyager had been no bed of
Felaran rose petals. The problem here is that Neelix is from
the Delta quadrant (where the ST:
Voyager
series takes place in the 24th Century) which is completely
unexplored by the Federation at this time (the 23rd
Century), so Kirk should know nothing of Felaran roses.
On page 269, Spock muses that the Enterprise
crewmembers under the influence
of the Perenorean mist act as if they've discovered nirvana
and that thinking is no longer required of them. "Nirvana"
is the state of perfect freedom and the release from the
cycle of birth, life, and death in Buddhism.
On page 274, Taell says to Spock, "The notion that
ignorance and indifference on the part of a few might
prevent us from helping the many goes against everything our
culture stands for." This is a play on the words of the
Vulcan philosopher Surak as mentioned by Spock in the
original timeline in
the 1982 film
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan:
"the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the
few."
On page 285, the Perenoreans are
induced to unconsciousness by
an airborne drug called anesthezine. This, as its name suggests,
is an anesthetic in the
Star Trek
universe. It was used or mentioned in a number of TNG, DS9,
and
Voyager
episodes, as well as in
The Assassination Game
here in the Kelvin timeline.
At the end of the book, Spock
wonders if one day the Federation will encounter a species
that is a hundred times more "helpful" than the
Perenoreans. This may be a foreshadowing to the appearance
of the Borg, as seen in the Next Generation era of
the original ST timeline, a species of cyborgs that
assimilated other species with the goal of reaching
"perfection". The Borg were earlier hinted at here in the
Kelvin timeline in
The Delta Anomaly and, later, appear in the
storyline beginning in
"Assimilation".
Back to Star Trek
Episode Studies
