While Admiral Picard was busy helping the Romulan people,
what was Captain Riker of the USS Titan up to?
Hello everyone, my name is Commander Brie, and welcome to Trek Central!
At the beginning of 2021 we got a new Picard tie-in novel, “The Dark Veil''
written by Trek author James Swallow.
This book follows the adventures of the USS Titan as it deals with not only a reclusive alien civilisation,
but a Romulan Empire in its death throes.
We have 12 years of Riker and Troi on the USS Titan before they retire to Nepenthe,
and hopefully with this book and their most recent reintroduction into Star Trek: Lower Decks, we get more stories of the USS Titan’s adventures!
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if you’re new to the Trek Central channel! We’re talking about Star Trek all the time and want to get you involved.
These are the voyages of the USS Titan in the year 2386,
a year after the Synth attack on the Utopia Planitia shipyards
and the resignation of Admiral Jean Luc Picard.
The Titan had been given the mission of escorting a group of diplomats
from a reclusive civilisation, the Jazari (Jah-Zar-Ree)
back to their star system which is close to Romulan Space.
The Titan reaches the Jazari home-world and finds that their planet has been completely stripped of everything,
with all the materials being used to build a massive Generation Ship, as
they no longer feel welcome in this sector of space and are in the process of moving their entire civilization.
Even the Jazari within Starfleet had all resigned their commission to return home, including an officer on the Titan.
One of the Jazari construction vessels breaks apart,
and with these ships being powered by singularity cores, similar to those employed by Romulan Ships,
it creates a subspace fracture. This threatens not only the Titan but also the Generation ship,
and Riker orders the Titan to help stabilise the Subspace Fracture.
The titan itself cannot stabilise the fracture,
but is assisted by a Romulan Mogai (Moe-Guy) Class Warbird who also detected the subspace fracture.
They are both able to stabilise the singularity, but both the vessels are damaged in the attempt.
The Romulan ship is called the IRW Othrys (Off-riss), and is commanded by Commander Joron Medaka.
Medaka is a particularly interesting Romulan, with his crew not only being made up of Romulans, but
other subservient species of the Romulan Empire,
including Remans, Taurhai (Tor-Ri), Garidians (Gar-id-ee-an) and Norkanians (Nor-Cane-EE-ans).
For assisting the Jazari, both captains and crews were allowed sanctuary on the Generation ship, but only Starfleet accepted,
however both senior officers of both vessels beamed down to the ship to meet with the Jazari.
The Generation ship would start to begin its travel away from their former homeworld, and were offered navigational charts from the Romulan Commander,
as their route passed through a dangerous area of space.
The Titan and the Othrys were allowed to follow the generation ship until they were repaired,
with the crew of the Titan staying in one of the Jazari’s habitat domes.
Captain Riker and Commander Medaka actually had a good exchange while on the Generation ship,
talking about their peoples temporary alliance during the Dominion War,
and how sad it was that this did not continue,
especially now with the knowledge of the supernova that threatened the Romulan Star Empire,
referred to by the Romulan people simply as “The Star Death”.
During this period of instability, Tal Shiar officers were put on every single ship within the Romulan fleet,
in order to ensure obedience during this time of crisis.
The Tal Shiar operative onboard the Orthys, Major Helek is not only Tal Shiar however,
but part of the mysterious cabal known as the Zhat Vash,
the same group from Star Trek: Picard who had taken it upon themselves to eliminate Synthetics and stop them from destroying all organic life like what happened thousands of years ago.
Major Helek does some undercover spying whilst on the Jazari Generation ship and identifies positronic signals within.
She makes it her mission to capture a Jazari and get them to confess to the crime of having synthetics on their ship,
using the same stealth suits which were used by Zhat Vash operatives on Earth 15 years later in 2399
when trying to capture the synthetic Dahj Asha.
While on the Generation ship, Thaddeus Troi Riker, the son of Troi and Riker
travels into a restricted area of the ship and befriends an AI called “Friend”.
While looking for “Friend” again, to show to the crew of the Titan,
haddeus spots the undercover Tal Shiar group as they are abducting a Jazari scientist.
The Tal Shiar group plant a bomb to cover up the abduction, making it look like the Jazari died in a power relay accidently blowing up.
The young Thad gets caught up in this explosion, and unfortunately falls into a coma with serious brain injuries.
During Major Helek’s interrogation of the Jazari scientist, she uncovers that the Jazari are not hiding
but are in fact extremely advanced Androids themselves similar to the level of the Coppelius androids seen in the year 2399.
As a Zhat Vash operative, tasked with eliminating synthetics wherever they can be found,
Helek successfully performs a coup against Commander Medaka to take control of the IRW Orthys.
She immediately orders the Othrys to attack the Generation ship and the USS Titan,
but also contacts the Zhat Vash to get Tal Shiar reinforcements.
The reinforcements arrive in the sight of two Tal Shiar Enforcer Class ships,
which are romulan in design but have clawlike constructions and serrated talons emerging from their hulls,
similar to that of the Narada as well as having the shrapnel torpedoes which were also present in the Narada’s arsenal.
Rumours suggested that these ships came from technology salvaged from borg ships.
The Narada was said to be refit by the Tal Shiar in the following year of 2387,
before it eventually got lost in the blackhole created by Spock that was used to absorb the Romulan supernova.
This Borg technology could have been recovered from the “Artifact” from Star Trek: Picard.
d. A disabled borg cube which was present in Romulan Space, and stripped of technology by both the Romulans and the Borg Reclamation Project,
whose Director was the xB Hugh.
While the three Romulan ships attack the Starfleet and Jazari vessels, the Jazari are convinced into allowing
their technology to help repair the injuries to Thaddeus’ brain.
Though not confirmed, this operation could have led to the further complications which took Thaddeus’ life in the end,
further explaining how a positronic matrix could have fixed it, as the surgery Thad underwent was originally used on positronic android brains.
Riker manages to also convince the Jazari to assist the USS Titan in defeating the romulans,
and they manage to incapacitate all three ships.
The two Enforcer class reinforcement ships decide to self-destruct instead of letting themselves get captured.
The Tal Shiar vessels, now rendered disabled, decide that to self destruct is the only course of action.
While the Othrys is incapacitated, Helek tries another maneouver and opens unsecure communications to the Titan
in order to sneakily transmit a virus that would take control of Riker’s ship.
A Similar virus was seen employed by the Tal Shiar during the Yuyat Beta incident in 2385
on Admiral Picard’s ship, the USS Verity.
The Tal Shiar operatives who actually tried to take control of Picard’s ship were Laris and Zhaban,
who after intentionally failing their mission, would go and hide out on Earth at Chateau Picard.
However, knowing that Helek would do something like this, not only was the Titan able to contain this virus,
but were able to infect the Othrys with their own virus, a simple one however
being able to change the frequency of the Othrys’ shields only.
With this the Titan sends an away team over to the Othrys, in order to break Medaka out of the brig and help him regain his command of the Othrys.
This is successful, and Helek is captured.
The generation ship then begins its procedure to open up a wormhole to the andromeda galaxy,
which was where the synthetic Jazari were originally made and manufactured.
ent to our galaxy by their creators to learn all they can, before returning.
Shortly after a fleet of Romulan ships decloaks, and orders the commanders of both the Titan and the Othrys to come aboard to take part in a tribunal hearing over what happened,
and what caused the loss of the two Tal Shiar ships.
The Romulan Judges decide that Major Helek is to blame,
who overstepped her boundaries as they too are unaware of the Zhat Vash hiding underneath the Tal Shiar.
They allow Medaka his command back as well as Riker to leave and return to the Titan.
Riker finds out that his advocate during the trial was none other than Mr. Spock.
We learn that not only had Picard’s rescue efforts helped to move most of Spock’s reunification disciples
to areas out of the effect of the supernova,
but now that the Federation has abandoned the Romulans to their star death,
Spock has opened communications between the Vulcan Science Directorate and the Romulan Government
n hopes of finding a way to stop the supernova.
This will eventually lead to the creation of the Jellyfish, to deliver Red Matter to absorb the Romulan Star.
Spock asks for the favour of Riker, to connect him with Rikers friend and colleague, Geordi La Forge.
It is presumed that La Forge will help design and create the Jellyfish for Mr Spock.
And those are the events of the USS Titan in the year 2386.
Kestra Troi-Riker, the daughter of William and Deana would be born in the following year of 2387,
and riker would continue to serve in Starfleet for the next 5 years, until 2391
where he would retire to the planet of Nepenthe with his family due to the terminal health condition of his son Thaddeus Worf Troi-Riker.
We still have many years of the Troi and Riker’s life aboard the USS Titan not yet catalogued,
so let's hope we get more stories about what the USS Titan was up to before Riker eventually retired.
Would you like to see more USS Titan stories? Let us know in the comment section below! Personally I would LOVE to see some of the Titan stories from the books come back into canon, as there are some amazing stories there!
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For now, I’ve been Commander Brie, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time! Live Long and prosper my friends!