The previous instalments of this series explored how Star Trek: Online described the events of the period from 2379 to 2399 in the Star Trek Universe. This one will detail how the novel continuity described the same timeframe. The major point of divergence between the two interpretations of canon is the Destiny trilogy of novels, which takes place in 2381. Everything in the novel continuity from that point on is completely different than what was covered in STO.
I have purposely omitted or overlooked certain storylines depicted in the novels to focus this article on major political events and military engagements; the novels cover a very wide swath of territory in terms of story and summarizing everything here would be, frankly, too daunting for my writing abilities. I very highly recommend reading these novels for yourself so you can get the full picture of the overall storyline and continuity the writers have painstakingly crafted over the last twenty years, and I’ll include a bibliography at the end to help guide your reading efforts.
Without further ado, let’s fly!
The Tezwa Affair
A discussion of events within the novel continuity post-Nemesis should ideally start with an event immediately preceding the film Star Trek: Nemesis: the Tezwa Affair. During the Dominion War, Federation president Min Zife arranged to install an array of nadion-pulse cannons on the planet Tezwa near the Klingon border as a trap in case the Dominion’s advance was to reach that far. In exchange, the Federation gave material aid to the plant’s prime minister, Kinchawn. The installation of these weapons was a direct violation of the Khitomer Accords and as a result, the cannons were kept offline and unarmed.
In 2379, Kinchawn made a claim on a nearby Klingon world, prompting Chancellor Martok to send a task force to answer the challenge. Kinchawn had activated and armed the nadion-pulse cannons and intended to use them against the approaching Klingon fleet. In an attempt to keep the Klingons from learning the cannons’ origin, President Zife convinced Martok to allow the Starship Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard to serve as an intermediary while Zife’s chief of staff convinced Kinchawn’s deputy to overthrow him. After welcoming the Enterprise and the Klingon fleet to Tezwa, Kinchawn had their landing parties arrested and opened fire with the cannons, destroying the Klingon fleet but also causing severe ecological damage to Tezwa itself.
President Zife ordered Picard to neutralize the control bases for the cannons by any means necessary. After neutralizing a second Klingon fleet with help from Ambassador Worf, Picard claimed control of the planet by the Klingon rite of batyay’a (a victor in combat can claim complete dominance of a conquered foe) and the Federation began relief efforts. Meanwhile, Zife’s chief of staff and minister of military intelligence attempted to cover up the origin of the cannons by blacking out planetary communications and planting evidence suggesting the Tholians were responsible.
Following the Tezwa Affair, Captain Picard, along with Admirals William Ross and Alynna Nechayev, confronted President Zife and his co-conspirators and convinced them all to resign from office and enter retirement. The officers then resolved to keep the entire matter off the official records. Unbeknownst to them, however, was the central role played by Section 31 in the entire affair; agents of the clandestine organization secretly executed President Zife and his co-conspirators.
The Federation held an emergency election in accordance with the Constitution and, in late 2379, Nanietta Bacco, former planetary governor of Cestus III, was elected to finish out the remainder of Min Zife’s term. Soon after the election, the Enterprise would set course for Romulus at the invitation of the new Praetor of the Romulan Star Empire, Shinzon.
In the aftermath of Shinzon’s coup, Senator Tal’Aura was named Praetor. Elements of the Romulan military led by Commander Donatra opposed this on the grounds of Tal’Aura’s commitment to maintaining the status quo regarding Federation relations, seizing control of several major agricultural worlds, and forming the Imperial Romulan State with Donatra as empress.
The Supercube Crisis
In 2380, a derelict Borg Supercube in Sector 10 began regenerating itself while remaining inactive with its drones removed and understudy by Starfleet. The Supercube had evolved beyond the capabilities of any previously encountered Borg ship and developed a new method of assimilation called absorption which was significantly more efficient than traditional methods. Admiral Kathryn Janeway aboard the USS Einstein attempted to study the cube closely but became the first starship absorbed, resulting in Janeway’s assimilation and ascension as the Queen of this isolated collective.
The Starship Thunderchild discovered the Supercube’s reactivation and, after a valiant defence, was absorbed, but not before a nearby ship transmitted a log of the event to the Federation. A fleet of three dozen ships was mustered in Sector 108 to stop the cube but failed after a ninety-seven-second engagement which saw nearly the entire fleet absorbed. The Supercube then entered Sector 001 and demanded the Federation turn over Jean-Luc Picard and Seven of Nine in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. Picard and Seven successfully managed to reactivate the Doomsday Machine and the Enterprise led it and a Starfleet task force to engage the Supercube. Major damage was inflicted but the Supercube was able to absorb the Doomsday Machine and incorporate its neutronium hull. Simultaneously, a backup plan was enacted: Seven was injected with the same Endgame virus used by Janeway to destabilize the Borg in 2378, and, in concert with Janeway’s slowly reemerging personality, the Supercube was infected and destroyed, resulting in Janeway’s death.
The assimilated USS Einstein, however, emerged from the wreckage and escaped the Sol system. Soon after, it was destroyed by the Enterprise. Following this, Borg attacks on the Federation began to intensify, with Starfleet unable to determine how the Borg were moving so fast. President Bacco made plans to call for the Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers to unite against the eventual return en masse of the Borg.
The Borg Invasion
The Starship Aventine under the command of newly minted Captain Ezri Dax had been investigating how the Earth Starship Columbia could have ended up in the Gamma Quadrant two centuries before the discovery of the Bajoran Wormhole. They discovered a subspace corridor leading from the Gamma Quadrant to the Azure Nebula in the Beta Quadrant and arrived in the nebula as the Enterprise was in battle with three Borg cubes. Thanks to transphasic torpedoes brought home by Voyager in 2378, the Starfleet ships destroyed the attacking cubes, then discovered that the nebula was a hub of subspace corridors leading all over the galaxy; this was how the Borg had managed to execute such quick attacks with little to no warning. Picard and Dax weighed options to collapse the tunnels but found that doing so would cause major damage to the entire galaxy; Admiral Nechayev ordered the captains to scout the tunnels to find which one led into Borg space while an allied fleet of over three hundred ships formed to blockade the nebula.
A massive fleet of over seven thousand Borg ships emerged in the nebula soon after and destroyed nearly the entire defence fleet before dispersing across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, destroying many major worlds including Beta Thoridor, Yridia, Khitomer, Rura Penthe, and Deneva. Enterprise and Aventine returned to the nebula soon after and contacted Starfleet for orders; President Bacco authorized Picard to do whatever was necessary to stop the Borg, and Admiral Edward Jellico, acting Starfleet commander in chief, told Picard to take whatever survivors he could and escape in the event Earth was destroyed. Enterprise was then contacted by the USS Titan under Captain William Riker who informed him of Titan’s recent escape from a race called the Caeliar with unexpected help: Captain Erika Hernandez of the Columbia NX-02.
Hernandez had been a captive of the Caeliar for over 800 years thanks to that race’s mastery of time travel and was convinced to help the Titan after learning of the imminent danger Earth faced. Her body had been modified with Caeliar catoms (basically programmable matter) which had rendered her effectively immortal; these catoms were surprisingly capable of interfacing with Borg nanoprobes, which inspired Captain Dax to initiate a plan to plug Hernandez into the Vinculum of a Borg ship and take control of the invasion fleet. The plan worked for a short time as Hernandez was able to pose as the Borg Queen and force the invasion fleet to fight itself, reducing their numbers by half and saving Qo’noS, Vulcan, Andor, Coridan, and several other worlds from destruction. The victory was short-lived as the true Queen regained control of the fleet and forced it to regenerate while taking control of the captured Borg ship and mentally assaulting Hernandez. The Borg fleet resumed its advance, has now adapted to the transphasic torpedo thus rendering the Federation defenceless.
While connected to the Vinculum, Hernandez noticed a startling similarity between the Borg collective consciousness and the Caeliar gestalt (a shared mental link between anyone using Caeliar catoms, basically their version of a hive mind, just not forced), and she reasoned that the Borg were the result of a failed fusion between the Caeliar and a human crewmember of the Columbia. After convincing Picard this was the only real option to end the invasion, Hernandez contacted the Caeliar and convinced them to send the city-ship Axion to the Azure Nebula. Upon detecting Axion’s Omega molecule generator, the Borg invasion force converged on the nebula. Hernandez beamed herself aboard the Queen’s ship and let herself be injected with Borg nanoprobes, serving as a conduit allowing the gestalt to fight a psychic battle against the Collective. After the gestalt gained access to the Queen, they found that the true power behind the Borg was a fallen Caeliar named Sedin who had degenerated into a being of pure rage and hunger; the gestalt then removed Sedin’s consciousness from the minds of the Borg drones, destroying the Collective in the process. Hernandez expanded the gestalt to encompass every former drone in the galaxy as they began to go insane without leadership or direction and changed their nanoprobes and implants into catoms, restoring their individuality. The remaining Borg ships transformed into silver spheres and the former drones became new Caeliar, vanishing to parts unknown.
In the aftermath of the invasion, the powers of the Alpha and Beta quadrants were severely weakened. Sixty-three billion people were killed and billions more were left homeless after the destruction of their worlds. Over forty per cent of Starfleet was lost along with equally significant losses to the Klingon Defense Force and Romulan Imperial Fleet. The hastily formed alliance between all the major powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants would serve as the impetus for a new formal interstellar alliance. Soon after the invasion, a Federation diplomat acquired a latinum coin emblazoned with the same two words in six different languages: Typhon Pact.
In the next part, we’ll explore The Typhon Pact, Project Full Circle, Romulan Intrigue, as well as the machinations of Section 31 during this era, and we’ll touch base with various beloved characters to see how they weather this tumultuous period in the history of the Star Trek Universe.
Read The Novels That Cover These Events…
- Articles of the Federation
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- Star Trek: Titan
- Star Trek
Bibliography/References
- The Tezwa Affair:
- Star Trek: A Time To… miniseries, chronicling events on the USS Enterprise leading to Star Trek: Nemesis.
- A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal by David Mack
- A Time for War, A Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido
- Star Trek: Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido
- Star Trek: Titan – Taking Wing by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels
- The Supercube Crisis:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Resistance by J.M. Dillard
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Before Dishonor by Peter David
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Greater Than the Sum by Christopher L. Bennett
- The Borg Invasion:
- Star Trek: Destiny Trilogy by David Mack, describing the Borg Invasion of 2381.
- Book I: Gods of Night, Book II: Mere Mortals, Book III: Lost Souls
- Star Trek: A Singular Destiny by Keith R.A. DeCandido
