To: 
From: "Steve Oostrom" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com

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>Okay -  Here's another one where the ending, must have gone screaming over=
 my
head -

In order to properly respond to this, I need to reread the story myself and=
 make sure I'm
up on what's going on, since it has been over two years since I wrote it
an= d a good time
since I last read it.  What I did review quickly was one of the two plot
ou= tlines I had for
this story.  The first outline was for the story as it appeared, and the
se= cond contained
the plotline in past time, as it happened.  I used that to pick out scenes
= for the dream
sequences while keeping the scenes consistent.

>Okay, the Iconians *beamed* the Athena back in time...  (I had in mind a
different mechanism for the Iconian Teleporters, myself)  but kept a perfec= t
copy of the Athena in their data banks to recreate her.

The technology used in the story is not the Iconian gateway technology.

I don't believe that the Iconians made a perfect copy of the Athena in some=
 kind of data bank.
What follows is just speculation, including background that does not appear=
 in the story.
First of all, the Iconians in the time frame of the Tkon supernova are not
= as advanced as they
would become, and had not even developed their gateway system yet.  It's
ev= en possible
that the temporal transporter was stolen or borrowed Tkon technology.  The
= Iconians were
worried, of course, that the people they borrowed from the future might
rea= lize what they did
and attempt to go back in time and undo those changes.  Therefore, the
Icon= ians had to
develop a way to make sure that the ship from the future would not remember=
 what had
happened, but they did not have the ability to make a perfect copy. 
Instea= d, they only had
enough space in the database, so to speak, to record the position of each
p= erson on board
so that when the ship was beamed back to its proper time period, everybody
= was in the same
position, hopefully with memories erased.  Even if the crew of the future
s= hip would realize
that three days had vanished from their lives, they might not be able to
fi= gure out what happened.
Unfortunately, the Iconians did not fully comprehend human memories, and
co= uld not totally
remove the memories of those days.

It's also possible that the Iconians realized through this mission that
mov= ing through time to
fight wars would have carried with it unpredictable risks and was not
reall= y worth it.  They did
it this time to exploit a flaw in Tkon security, but it was difficult and
r= isky and they could never
be sure of the final outcome.

>Ummmm okay. (Shades of Black Omne from the Culbreath and Marshak
"Phoenix"
novels)  if this was the case, then why wait three days to put the ship bac= k?
Why not just take the scan and use the copy.  After all, you know they're
disposable anyway.

It's been a couple of decades since I read (or more accurately attempted to=
 read) the
"Phoenix" novels.

>So after three days the Iconians decide that the Athena has had it, and re=
place
her with their perfect transporter copy -  where did the food that made the
crew members nauseous come from?  That was a nice time warp effect
by-the-w= ay.

The food was from the meal that many of the crew had just eaten (it was not=
 long after
lunch), and was part of the "copy" that put the crew back in the
same posit= ions that they
were after being returned.  In essence, they got to digest that lunch
twice= .  Thanks for
the opinion on the warp effect.  I could almost imagine the nausea...

>So how did Thorpe and company recall *anything*?

Not at the time.

>You're on the verge of establishing, in ST:Athena, that memories are actua=
lly
something ineffable,  like the spirit, and so physically damaging or changi= ng
someone's brain won't destroy memories, because those reside in the soul, o= r
the spirit.

I might not go that far, but it is something to think about, and even hits
= at some aspects
of Odonan mysticism concerning the afterlife.

>Why did Thorpe agree to go along with what is basically a hit-job and not =
get
both sides of the story?

I'm not exactly sure if this point was brought out in the story, but his
mi= ssion was to
retrieve the traitor and implant something in the Tkon quarters.  He had no=
 idea what
the Iconians really wanted him to do.  He did this because the Iconians con= trolled
their way back to their period.

>What did were the Iconians *doing*?  I got the impression that they were
murdering a rival in it's crib.  But the method they were using seemed baro= que.
why not just send agents futher into the past and kidnap Zia-Ta before she = ever
got the idea of helping the Tkon Empire?  Why not detour a small asteroid i= nto
the TKon homeworld before they got out of their stone age?

Actually, the Tkon Empire was old and established by this time, and the Ico= nians
were the newly-emerging race that would in time earn the label that is the
= episode's
title.  The Iconians realized that as long as the Tkons were around, their
= own expanionist
ambitions were limited, so when they had the opportunity to exploit Tkon we= aknesses
(their attachment to their home system and their arrogance in thinkng that
= they could
actually replace the star in their system with a younger one), they took
th= at chance.

>And how were the Iconians destroyed?  Fighting a time travelling people wo=
uld
be hard. A lot of the time you'd find out that you were onto a good idea fo= r
fighting them because heavily armed interventionists from the future would = show
up and blast you before you had a chance to put your plan into operation

It was not established that the Iconians travelled in time, but they used
t= echnology available
to them to bring in ships and people from the future.

>I found the lack of explanantion about what's going on in the story sort o=
f
hindering,  although I like the element of mysteriously piecing together hi= dden
or obscure memories.  that part is well done and cool.

Truly, even Thorpe and his crew could not fully figure out what was going
o= n.  That was part
of the story.

>Why did Li retain her gun injury?

As mentioned, the people were beamed back with the ship, but they were not
= "copies" but
the originals, whose original positions were retained by the temporal
trans= porter and the people
beamed into those positions.  It's possible that the Tkon were unaware that=
 Li had been injured.

>these are why I generally eschew Time Travel stories in Jay-Trek.  Logic i=
s the
first casualty.

I use time travel sparingly, but sometmes, I can tell an interesting story
= using time travel and
will go ahead and do it.  Quite often in Trek, logic is the first casualty,=
 and we have to accept
the casualty to tell the story that we want to tell.  Jay-Trek has the same=
 problem with respect
to other aspects, especially the Kliges'chee.  I can see that they are
aggr= essive and like to
conquer things, but why would they eat people and the lifeforms found on
cl= ass-M planets?
Their biology is fundamentally different from us.  We're something like
nin= ety percent water,
so if the Kliges'chee were to eat a person, all of that water would freeze.=
  I doubt that would
do the Kliges'chee much good. It would be like us eating lava and having it=
 turn to rocks inside
our bodies, destroying them in the process.  To the Kliges'chee, water is
l= ike rock.  Why would
they consume it?  In Jay-Trek, there's a rationale, but if I had something
= like the Kliges'chee
in Steve-Trek, they would not consume the biology of class-M planets.

Steve
The Universe Unbounded.

Visit "Star Trek: Athena" at http://ussathena.iwarp.com





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>Okay -  Here's another one where the ending,
must have gone
screaming over myhead -
In order to properly respond to
this, I need to
reread the story myself and make sure I'm
up on what's going on, since it
has been over two
years since I wrote it and a good time
since I last read it. 
What I did review
quickly was one of the two plot outlines I had for
this story.  The first
outline was for the
story as it appeared, and the second contained
the plotline in past time, as it
happened.  I
used that to pick out scenes for the dream
sequences while keeping the scenes
consistent.
>Okay, the Iconians *beamed* the Athena back in
time...  (I
had
in mind adifferent mechanism for the Iconian Teleporters,
myself)  but kept a perfectcopy of the Athena in their
data banks to recreate her.
The technology used in the story is not the
Iconian
gateway technology.
I don't believe
that the Iconians made a perfect copy of the Athena in some kind of data
bank.
What follows is just speculation, including
background that does not appear in the story.
First of all, the Iconians in the
time frame of
the
Tkon supernova are not as advanced as they
would become, and had not even
developed their
gateway system yet.  It's even possible
that the temporal transporter was stolen or
borrowed Tkon technology.  The Iconians were
worried, of course, that the
people they borrowed
from the future might realize what they did
and attempt to go back in time and
undo those
changes.  Therefore, the Iconians had to
develop a way to make sure that
the ship from the
future would not remember what had
happened, but they did not have
the ability to
make
a perfect copy.  Instead, they only had
enough space in the database, so
to speak, to
record the position of each person on board
so that when the ship was beamed back to its
proper
time period, everybody was in the same
position, hopefully with memories
erased. 
Even if the crew of the future ship would realize
that three days had vanished from
their lives,
they
might not be able to figure out what happened.
Unfortunately, the Iconians did not fully
comprehend human memories, and could not totally
remove the memories of those
days.
 
It's also possible that the
Iconians realized
through this mission that moving through time to
fight wars would have carried with it
unpredictable
risks and was not really worth it.  They did
it this time to exploit a flaw in
Tkon security,
but it was difficult and risky and they could never
be sure of the final
outcome.
>Ummmm okay. (Shades of Black Omne from the
Culbreath and Marshak
"Phoenix"novels)  if this was the case, then
why wait three days to put
the ship back?Why not just take the scan and use the
copy.  After all, you know they'redisposable
anyway.
It's been a couple of decades
since I read (or
more
accurately attempted to read) the
"Phoenix"
novels.
>So after three days the Iconians decide that
the Athena has had
it,
and replaceher with their perfect transporter copy - 
where did the food that made thecrew members nauseous come
from?  That was a nice time warp effect
by-the-way.
The food was from the meal that
many of the crew
had just eaten (it was not long after
lunch), and was part of the
"copy" that put the
crew back in the same positions that they
were after being
returned.  In essence, they
got to digest that lunch twice.  Thanks for
the opinion on the warp
effect.  I could
almost imagine the nausea...
>So how did Thorpe and company recall
*anything*?
Not at the
time.
>You're on the verge of establishing, in
ST:Athena, that memories
are actuallysomething ineffable,  like the spirit, and
so physically damaging or changingsomeone's brain won't destroy
memories, because those reside in the soul, orthe
spirit.
I might not go that far, but it is
something to
think about, and even hits at some aspects
of Odonan mysticism concerning the
afterlife.
>Why did Thorpe agree to go along with what is
basically a hit-job
and not getboth sides of the story?
I'm not exactly sure if this point
was brought out
in the story, but his mission was to
retrieve the traitor and implant
something in the
Tkon quarters.  He had no idea what
the Iconians really wanted him to
do.  He did
this because the Iconians controlled
their way back to their
period.
>What did were the Iconians *doing*? 
I got the impression
that
they weremurdering a rival in it's crib.  But the method
they were using seemed baroque.why not just send agents futher
into the past and kidnap Zia-Ta before she evergot the idea of
helping the Tkon Empire?  Why not detour a small asteroid
intothe TKon homeworld before they got out of their stone
age?
Actually, the Tkon Empire was old
and established
by this time, and the Iconians
were the newly-emerging race that
would in time
earn the label that is the episode's
title.  The Iconians
realized that as long as
the Tkons were around, their own expanionist
ambitions were limited, so when they had the
opportunity to exploit Tkon weaknesses
(their attachment to their home
system and their
arrogance in thinkng that they could
actually replace the star in their
system with a
younger one), they took that chance.
>And how were the Iconians destroyed? 
Fighting a time
travelling people wouldbe hard. A lot of the time you'd find out
that you were onto a good idea forfighting them because heavily
armed interventionists from the future would showup and blast you
before you had a
chance to put your plan into operation
It was not established that the
Iconians travelled
in time, but they used technology available
to them to bring in ships and
people from the
future.
>I found the lack of explanantion about what's
going on in the
story
sort ofhindering,  although I like the element of
mysteriously piecing together hiddenor obscure
memories.  that part is well done and cool.
Truly, even Thorpe and his crew
could not fully
figure out what was going on.  That was part
of the
story.
>Why did Li retain her gun injury?
 
As mentioned, the people were
beamed back with the
ship, but they were not "copies" but
the originals, whose original positions were
retained by the temporal transporter and the people
beamed into those
positions.  It's possible
that the Tkon were unaware that Li had been
injured.>these are
why I generally eschew Time Travel stories in Jay-Trek.  Logic is
thefirst casualty.
 
I use time travel sparingly, but
sometmes, I
can tell an interesting story using time travel and
will go ahead and do it. 
Quite often in
Trek,
logic is the first casualty, and we have to accept
the casualty to tell the story
that we want to
tell.  Jay-Trek has the same problem with respect
to other aspects, especially the
Kliges'chee. 
I can see that they are aggressive and like to
conquer things, but why would they
eat people and
the lifeforms found on class-M planets?
Their biology is fundamentally
different from
us.  We're something like ninety percent water,
so if the Kliges'chee were to eat
a person, all of
that water would freeze.  I doubt that would
do the Kliges'chee much good. It
would be like us
eating lava and having it turn to rocks inside
our bodies, destroying them in the
process. 
To the Kliges'chee, water is like rock.  Why would
they consume it?  In
Jay-Trek, there's a
rationale, but if I had something like the Kliges'chee
in Steve-Trek, they would not
consume the biology
of class-M planets.
 
Steve
The Universe
Unbounded.
 
Visit "Star Trek: Athena" at http://ussathena.iwarp.com;">http://ussathena.iwarp.comhttp://ussathena.iwarp.com">http://ussathena.iwarp.com;
 







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