Titan: Sword of Damocles Annotations

HELLO WORLD

2009-06-01T22:54:00.000-07:00

My name, which you should know if you made it this far, is Geoffrey Thorne.

I wrote the fourth TITAN novel, SWORD OF DAMOCLES. Some folks love it. Some folks like it. A very very very very few hate it. But enough people found enough of it either interesting or confusing enough that an annotation site was warranted. This is that site. I'll add to it as I see the need.

NOTE:

There is, at this time, no animated TITAN series but wouldn't it be fun if there was?

TITAN: TAS- THE TROIS

2009-05-31T21:03:00.000-07:00

TITAN: TAS- OPERATIONS

2009-05-31T18:19:00.001-07:00

VALE

DAKAL

LAVENA

PAVA

TITAN: TAS- COMMAND

2009-05-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

TUVOK

KERU

RA-HAVREII

TORVIG

TITAN: TAS- SCIENCES

2009-05-29T15:43:00.001-07:00

PAZLAR

REE

MODAN

BRALIK

HSUURI

ORILLY

DR. SE'AL CETHENTHE QAS

K'chak'!'op

FOUR: FAITH

2008-10-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

Early on editor Marco Palmieri and I decided that SoD would, among other things, be about Faith. Not which ones are right or wrong or whether or not Faith and Reason can co-exist (or should) but simply, "How is Faith expressed in a universe with beings like the Q, the Prophets and the Organians running around? How does worship shape a society as a whole? What factors can cause belief in a deity that displays no true intelligence or ability to make contact with Her/His/Its constituents?"

Hence Erykon. Hence the Eye.

All the Star Trek series have touched on the subject of Faith at one time or another and many of the books and stories have as well. Many times people of faith are depicted as intolerant or misguided or simply dangerous zealots which, of course, in real life, they have been too many times and much to the detriment of many individuals and societies. But, also in real life, it is often people of deep religious conviction who have changed the world for the better due entirely to that conviction.

But we weren't really trying to tell that story. SoD is about, among other things, how the Deity FEARING may not be quite as powerful or beneficial as the Deity LOVING. Because there is a difference (at least in my mind). I prefer the latter. And, of course, I really don't get all the fear that seems to be at the core of too many people's Belief.

I, personally, am not a person of Faith. While I have been known to argue with the myopic fundamentalists who insist on literal interpretations of their bibles or in presenting them as accurate descriptions of historical events, I do not believe such people should have their right to believe as they wish removed or even curtailed. it's a big ol' world out there and there's room for pretty much everybody.

I tried to create balanced views on how various people and species in the Trek universe approach the subject of God(s) and I tried to be respectful of the notion of belief while purposefully not including any recognizable human belief systems.

I do feel everybody, Believers and Non Believers, can get along when it comes to this stuff. They just have to accept that Science and Faith aren't attempting to describe the same Universe or answer the same Questions.

THREE: TOV

2008-07-17T21:47:00.001-07:00

The TELEMETRIC OBSERVATION VISOR is a technology extrapolated from the so-called TEACHER, a device created by the dying civilization of SIGMA DRACONIS VI.

Designed for use by humanoids primarily, the transparent aluminum "helmet" is shaped like a traditional fishbowl with several dozen metallic rods imbedded through much of the surface.

It fits over the head of the user, its telemetric nodes bypassing the normal connections the user has with the five senses and replacing them with data gleaned from a variety of robotic exo-probes. The net effect is, while wearing the TOV and the corresponding harness, the user feels as if s/he is "flying" in space without the cumbersome restrictions of a traditional EV suit.

TWO: ORISHA

2008-04-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

Causality: the description of the relationship between one event- the cause- and another - the effect in which the latter is the direct result of the former.

Star Trek plays fast an loose with Time and the travel therein. On the one hand we have multiple depictions of time lines being "broken" and some iteration of our stalwart heroes moving to fix the break. Timelines in Star Trek get broken and mended on a reasonably regular basis. While this approach makes for some incredibly good stories (City on the Edge of Forever, Yesterday's Enterprise, etc.) it has two drawbacks IMO.

1) It gives writers easy outs when they can simply reboot a "broken" line, thereby erasing the consequences of the events we just witnessed (A Year in Hell 1 and 2 ). That sort of thing rubs a lot of fans the wrong way (and I am one of those fans) because it means you essentially just wasted hours or days on an episode or book. Sure none of these stories are "real" but we've suspended our disbelief enough to buy in. Erasing the events feels like a cheat to a lot of us.

2) It implies something is true, i.e. it being possible to break and fix timelines, which is in direct opposition to so-called Many Worlds Theory which is another concept employed by not a few Trek writers.

As a subscriber to the latter, I find it impossible to accept stories in which timelines are "broken" and subsequently "restored."

When discussing the time travel aspects of SoD, Marco Palmieri and I decided very early on that there would be no rebooting and no "fixing" of broken timelines. There would be no miraculous saves or reprieves. Everybody who dies, dies. Everything you see happens and remains true even after the temporal chaos is righted.

What I set up vis a vis the planet Orisha and the Eye of Erykon was essentially a causality loop. As this has caused some trouble for some readers (MY fault entirely, of course as it's my job to make sure there are no problems) I would like to spell it out here so there's no confusion. What follows is a massive spoiler so, if you don't like that sort of thing, stop now.

Seriously.

I'm not joking.

Last chance.

Okay. You were warned.

1) At some time in the distant Orishan past the Eye of their deity Erykon appeared in the sky as a sort of glowy oscillating sphere floating above the surface similar to the way Earth's Moon does ours.

2) at some later date, the Eye "opened," changing the visual effect ("fire" appearing in the sky, etc.) and creating massive siesmic disturbances on the planet in the form of quakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions. These cataclysms were so terrifying that the fear of them began to dominate Orishan thinking and, ultimately, their expression of their faith in Erykon.

3) Assuming themselves to have been found wanting by their deity (hence the destruction) the Orishans re-imagine and reconstruct their civilization multiple times in hopes of finding one that will please. Of course they never do. The Eye "opens" at random centuries long intervals, invariably destroying nearly everything on the surface and deeply traumatizing the Orishans themselves.

4) The Orishans, hoping to hide from Erykon's eventual wrath, begin to build downward, tunneling cities instead of building upward as they had done. This seems to work and the Eye "sleeps" for an extended period.

5) During this period the Orishan society evolves. They are smart, inventive and, under normal circumstances, would probably have become a planet of explorers except for their almost genetic fear of the sky.

6) Eventually the Orishans, in an attempt to both protect themselves from any further eruptions and to finally get a handle on the Eye's actual nature, build the Veil network and the Vessel.

7) The Veil is a giant cloaking device meant to hide the entire planet by folding the space around it. In fact one of the massive Veil Spires would be enough to cloak the planet but, due to their impossible paranoia, the Orishans opt for overkill, building multiple fold projectors all over the planet in a network.

8) Nothing happens for centuries. The Veil devices fall into decay. They are still operable but nowhere near as reliable.

8) The Vessel is sent to make contact with the Eye and, if possible, learn how not to anger their God in the future. Still nothing happens.

10) TITAN shows up, freaks out the Orishans, causing them to activate the Veil. The broken network fails, causing the many space folds to collapse in upon themselves to form a four dimensional object called a tesseract or hypercube. The collapsed Veil network also creates unpredictable effects, disrupting the quantum states of "particles" in expanding rippling waves around the planet. These ripples are literally folds of space-time and wreak havoc with just about anything with which they come into contact. As we saw.

11) Inside the tesseract, Orisha bounces in and out of space-time at random, ultimately causing the original destruction the Orishans believed to be the work of Erykon's Eye. It is only when TITAN's crew manages to safely de-activate the Veil network that the "Eye" finally vanishes form the Orishan sky and the society beneath is spared further cataclysm.

ONE: FIRE

2008-01-26T14:55:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the things I thought might be of interest about the so-called technobabble (how I hate that word) and other things that are unique to the book.

I’ll try to take things in order but don’t hold me to that.

As people ask me questions in real life, I will add those answers to this page that I deem necessary and helpful. THERE ARE LOTS OF SPOILERS HERE SO, if you're not done with the book, STOP READING NOW.

So. Let’s begin.

EPILOGUE

Well. Obviously, as this story involves some time travel, I tried to place things in an order that jumbled up the normal cause-and-effect flow. Some have found this confusing, yes, but most, the vast majority, it seems, have enjoyed it.

JAZA

Jaza Najem’s history with the Bajoran Resistance is alluded to in the previous TITAN books as well as in WORLDS OF DS9 Vol. 2.

His family dynamics were never described beyond his having children so I filled in some of those blanks.

His mother died of Orkett’s Disease. His father was a doctor. His wife died during the Occupation. He has two adult children, Esola, his daughter and Kren, his son.

MODAN

Y’Lira Modan is the second representative from the planet Selene to be depicted in Star Trek fiction.

The first was Captain Y’Lira Medoxa of the USS Anansi(DS9: PROPHECY & CHANGE Chiaroscuro).

SELENE is an M Class world in the Alpha Quadrant. It is fourth of six planets that orbit an adolescent star and is slightly larger and more massive than Earth. The dominant life form is not naturally humanoid but rather a chimera species displaying characteristics corresponding to terrestrial simian, marsupial and arthropod species.

Seleneans are fantastically adept at genetic manipulation with representatives, POD MOTHERS, designing subsequent generations based upon the consensus of members of the current one. Selenean society is organized into extensive family groups called COVENS.

Selene has no single ruler. All decisions are made by the Pod Mothers through group consensus.

While Seleneans are, technically, a neuter species, reproducing asexually via group linking and pod generation, the current generation has been designed with humanoid, Klingonoid and Vulcanoid gender characteristics in order to facilitate easy acceptance by the dominant species of the Federation. Whether this modification is merely cosmetic or induces true genetic similarity with the mimicked species is not known.

All Seleneans, when threatened with physical attack, revert to their original chimeric form until their safety is restored. The chimeric form is extremely durable with armor-like dermal plates, prehensile jaws and fangs as well as razor sharp claws on all ten digits. In this form Seleneans are formidable hand- to- hand combatants.

Selenean families, or crèches, are designed by their Pod Mothers with specific traits hardwired into them- the Y’Lira crèche is coded for curiosity, durability and adaptability as well as certain uniform height an weight specifications. Once out of the crèche environmental factors can create great variety even among “sisters” who began essentially identical in every way.

Selenean brains have five lobes. No matter what form they take, all Seleneans have two unvaried identifying characteristics. They all have skin that appears to be made of polished gold and a minimum of two bulbous, turquoise eyes that have been said to resemble large gemstones.

Seleneans do not cry. Nor do they blink involuntarily.

Seleneans are chemopaths, using “linking spines” to directly alter the chemistry of connected brains in order to share information and to breed.

There are seventeen Seleneans in Starfleet from various crèches with a diaspora of 2500 more spread out among the worlds of the Federation.

While not as stoic as Vulcans, Seleneans are extremely analytical, preferring reasoned action over intuitive. They are naturally polite, seeking never to offend any being under any circumstances if they can avoid it. This may be a cultural characteristic rather than genetically hardwired.

Seleneans do not lie. Not because they have a moral aversion to it but because their natural means of communication makes it impossible. The closest word they have for “false” etc. is “incorrect.”

PART ONE

The poem is, of course, taken from STAR TREK: GENERATIONS. Dr. Soren, the insane El Aurian, asks if Picard has heard the phrase “Time is the fire in which we burn.”

Again, as this story is about various forms of time travel (memory counts as time travel), I thought it was such a nice line that it would be fun to flesh out the phrase.

Ironically, it turns out the phrase was taken by the film's writers from an existing poem, “Calmly We Walk Through this April’s Day.” By Delmore Schwartz.

This was brought to my attention (after the fact) by a reader called Don Tremblay (thanks, Don!)

You can read the original poem here.

While it’s a good poem, if I had seen it, I wouldn’t have used it for SoD. Odds are I would have written something else.