DS9 Relaunch: Pros and Cons

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[archived from tumblr]

FYI: The DS9 relaunch is a series of post-canon novels that form their own canon and tie into TNG/VGR novels. The DS9 relaunch is better established than any other “relaunch” series. For a year the DS9 relaunch was put on hold for crossover novels called “Typhon Pact,” so for our purposes, the First Half of the Relaunch was before Typhon Pact, the Second Half was after Typhon Pact.



Pros:

• Ro Laren is introduced early on and only grows in importance as the series progresses.


• Andrew Robinson (the actor who plays Garak) wrote A Stitch in Time, a fantastic Garak backstory novel.


• David Mack and Una McCormack write high quality prose.


• No spoilers but Quark gets a great relationship.


• Bajoran religion is fleshed out. Specifically, there is a large debate between people who view the prophets as Gods and an alternative sect that views them as benificent aliens.


• Garak gets a boyfriend (but it’s not explicitly stated, so boo)


• Kira’s plotlines in the first half of the relaunch were frickin’ amazing. They really get Kira.


• The first half of the relaunch introduced fantastic new characters, including a commander from SI who wants to take down S31, his estranged ensign daughter, an andorian science officer, AND A JEM HADAR ELDER WHO IS IMMUNE TO KETRICEL WHITE.


• ALL ANDORIANS ARE POLYAMORUS and have four genders


• The four gender thing makes mating complicated, leading to the Andorian gene crisis, a plotline that goes on for ten years. That level of worldbuilding is fab.


• It gets weird at the end but Illiana Ghemor gets a big role


• Ezri becomes a captain


• S31 is fully explored.


• Bashir gets his own novels. The genetic enhancement plotline is actually used to almost its full potential.


• Background diversity (lesbian ensigns, etc.)


• Lots of fanservice nods.


• A trilogy of books that focus on other alien cultures (Cardassia, Ferenginar, Trill, etc.)


• Odo is great? He’s sarcastic and his return from the Dominion makes sense. Also, there’s no special effect budget limitations on his shapeshifting.


• Quark is never leaving.


• Ezri/Bashir break up (eventually) but idk their whole relationship is surprisingly well done and realistic with room to interpret it as something genuinely sweet and as a disaster mistake from hell.

Cons:

• Even though the plot is good, the prose in the first two books is pretty weak.


• David R. George III ruins everything he touches. (Extraneous detail, boring plots, shallow characterization. It’s not all awful but it’s mostly awful). He’s been writing most of the relaunch books for the past couple of years.


• Lots of books that should be DS9 books (like S31 Control, which features Julian Bashir, Sarina Douglas, and Elim Garak) are marked as TNG books so you have to know what you’re looking for.


• Sarina Douglas/Julian Bashir hellship is canon.


• Kira fucks off live in a past reality for two years for no fucking reason because David R. George III ruins everything he touches. She also becomes a vedek, which, ugh.


• Sisko? Benjamin Sisko? Who’s he? the protagonist? what a subjective term.


• Seriously very little Sisko content I hate it.


• Sisko returns from the wormhole and then leaves Kasidy to angst about being a former Emissary, even though that goes against Avery Brook’s explicit wishes for the series ending.


• Una McCormack’s post-canon Cardassia is just…weird? It’s modeled after post nazi-Germany, which isn’t quite right.


• All those great new characters introduced in the first half of the relaunch? They go away for the second half and newer characters are shoddily introduced.


• By the late second half hardly anyone from DS9 is on DS9. The O’Brien’s come back and inexplicably David R. George will not touch them???


• The plotlines in DR George’s novels make no fecking sense? TRY READING A PLOT SUMMARY OF ONE ON WIKIPEDIA I FUCKING DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU ONE CHARACTER DIES IN A TIME LOOP AND THEN TRANSCENDS TO EXIST AS THE SHAPESHIFTING SPECIES THAT ARE THE FOUNDERS GODS FOR FUCK’S SAKES WHY


• JULIAN DOESN’T GO TO CARDASSIA FOR ELEVEN YEARS EVEN THOUGH HE GETS AN EXPLICIT INVITATION FROM GARAK FOR PITY SAKES THIS ISN’T EVEN JUST A SHIPPING THING GO VISIT UR LONELY FRIEND YOU GET LEAVE JULIAN

[Archive-y notes: It feels supremely weird to go back and try and save some of my approaching-effortposts from tumblr. Binging ten years of trek novels over the course of a summer was lovely and possibly gave me brain damage of some sort. It's interesting thinking about what I considered a pro/con a few years ago; would I even consider writing in background diversity as a pro now? This was fun. Talk treklit with me, etc.]