Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Enterprise vs. Starfleet-Year One

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Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

For anyone who reads the Star Trek novels, Michael Jan Friedman wrote a twelve chapter mini-novel called "Starfleet-Year One" in which he creates a pre-Federation scenario based on Okuda's interpretation of the Star Trek timeline, with characters mentioned previously such as Bryce Shumar and the Styles family. He apparently wrote it before the concept of "Enterprise" was introduced, as it is quite different from the new show in almost all respects.

My question to those who have read it is: How would you compare it with Enterprise? Better? Worse? Give your reasons.

[ October 18, 2001: Message edited by: Dukhat ]

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Worse in all respects. Mainly because of Friedman's inability to write an interesting book even when starting from a highly interesting premise. But the story qualities aside, "Year One" seemed to give us a little too simplistic a setup for the Federation Starfleet - first there is the military, then there is this Starfleet thingy, and the former doesn't much carry over to the latter. And humans do it all there, with only a single token alien who apparently acts independently of any government. The ENT approach of the Earthlings being the underdogs is much more realistic and also dramatically more promising.

As for starship development, the jump from "Christophers" to "Daedaloi" is far too abrupt there. Not to mention how I hate all references to "Cristopher" in Trek anyway - this guy from "Tomorrow is Yesterday" was an absolute nobody, since even our beloved heroes Kirk and Spock didn't recognize his name. He was NOT a publicity figure after whom future humans will name ships and colonies.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :

I wouldnt go so far to say that Friedman cant write a decent story. His TNG comics are in the upper class of Trek comics produced, despite their tendency for cheesiness. Even though Friedman does tend to be cheesy in the ranks of writers like Diane Duane, Diane Carey and Peter David, i have always been impressed by 'Reunion' and 'Kahless'.. the ending of the latter could shake the Klingon empire to its very bones and i found it a great little piece of information (and continuity fix too, but im sure it wasnt intended as such)

Friedman's problem seems to have started a few years ago after that book. His 'Double Helix' crossover ended up being such crap that i put it down before the ending (which i went back and read.. some shit about having some orion slave girl practically canonized as a saint for standing in front of a disruptor [and the great part 'lets not forget that her name was Grace, us having named her that ourselves several pages ago']) Friedman was given early credit for his cast of guest characters, and stuck to this premise to the point where he spends more time describing the characters than he does have anything happen to them. Like 'Saratoga' where he revamps the exact same storyline ar 'Reunion', except this time he is hindered by the fact he obviously doesnt understand or watch Deep Space Nine.

That was one of the flaws of 'Year One'.. his characters were not well established, and acted like robots performing a play. I found his tech to be a little odd.. i liked the idea of Earth Fleet and other alien governments having been working around each other. He might have been happier making up his own characters than trying to assign personalities to name-drops from old episodes..

I did like the idea of seeing Earth have more of an infrastructure available in space.. being 10 years after Enterprise, its likely there would be some buildup of Earth vessels leaving the system , for protection reasons. This could fit into the puzzle in that manner. I didnt like seeing him use the transporter so early, but chances are the ENT crew will perfect it by then (which i still dont like)
SO
TECH: B+
CHARACTERS: D-
CONTINUITY REFERENCES: B-
CONTINUITY ADHERENCE (PERCIEVED): D+