Hello all! Ric here with a video that is a bit of everything really on Gallery books
“the Dark Veil” by James Swallow. This is a Picard series prequel book and continuation
from “The Last Best Hope” by Una McCormack, of a sort. Having recently finished it, I
wanted to take my time with it, initially I’ll give some spoiler-free impressions
and thoughts, a review of sorts I guess before looking into some specifics and lore implications,
however if you want to avoid any details about it, ignore this video! Wait no, don’t … don’t
ignore this video, I need the views, go watch another on of mine. I know how to Youtube!
So to begin with, this book follows the crew of the USS Titan, specifically the Riker family,
including the previously unseen Thaddeus Riker in the year 2386, one year before the Romulan
Sun goes supernova and a year after Jean-Luc Picard retired from Starfleet following the
Mars attack. It also switches frequently to the Point of View of a Romulan vessel, the
IRW Orthys, a Mogai Class warbird, similar to those seen in Star Trek Nemesis.
So in terms of the state of the galaxy, things are a little “strained” to say the least.
Starfleet at this stage as an organisation is in the midst of its defensive, reactionary
stance after the Mars attack which still remains a mystery. The USS Titan has been pulled back
from deep space exploration that it had been doing for the prior 7 years and tasked with
closer to home patrols around the Neutral Zone.
Interestingly, the crew of the USS Titan includes a roster of familiar names, such as the First
Officer, Christine Vale, the X.O of the Titan in both this story and prior Titan novels
as well as a mostly new ones, as the Titan has just recently had a crew turnover as part
of its reassignments. We can get into that in the spoiler talk. The mission it finds
itself involved in centres around a species called the Jazari, Federation affiliates who
have recently decided to recall all their Starfleet members and colonists to their home
world for some reason, but it is right on the edge of the Neutral Zone, or I guess,
former neutral zone since the events of the first Picard book. Hence Romulans get involved.
The story, much like its predecessor unfolds its narrative by bouncing between a Federation
POV and the Romulans, but we also spend some time in the shoes of the young Thaddeus Troi-Riker
which is annoying for me, because I dislike reading things from a kid’s perspective,
but that’s a personal gripe. It’s not done badly at all, I just get frustrated that
to Thad, bullies are more important than the state of the Romulan evacuation and such,
but hey, that is child priorities for you. The tale it tells is a self-contained mission
about why the Jazari are acting to secretive, how can Starfleet help while keeping its distance
and of course, like any story involving Romulans, just what is the Star Empire really up to
here? This differentiates it from “Last Best Hope” however, which was set over the
course of several years and sort of checked in with Picard and other characters throughout
the course of the Romulan evacuation until it all came to a stand-still in 2385. The
fact it is only covers a single mission means that it’s less focused on world building
and more on fleshing out characters within the tale, building out a likable cast although
the villain of the piece is rather cartoonishly evil. But I can only cover that in depth with
spoilers. This book doesn’t do a great deal to expand
upon lore or answer questions about the lead up to the Mars incident, which was very much
the focus of the “Last Best Hope”. This tale is more about how the crew of the Titan,
Riker in particular is dealing with the aftermath of the event and the decision made to withdraw
and raise the drawbridge as it were. Overall, I found it a more engaging read than he previous
because of the scope afforded it, whereas the prior book had a lot to flesh out and
a large chunk of world building to accomplish, this one tells a more cohesive storyline akin
to the sort of thing that would have made a two-parter episode as part of a TNG run.
That being said, I think the villain could have been a little stronger even if there
is a reason for their villainy. There are a couple of standout characters that I really
did enjoy, but most of the background crew that was not part of the “original” Titan
lot I felt very little for although there is some effort to flesh them out, I actually
found a greater diversity among the new Romulan characters.
So that about sums up my impressions of the book. Let’s instead talk lore! This book
has the Tal Shiar as the antagonists to the USS Titan, or more specifically the Zhat Vash.
It’s been established in the show that the Zhat Vash take particularly zealous Romulan
Tal Shiar agents, all female for some reason, and bring them to the planet Aia where they
have uncovered the admonition. Now in the series, we learn all about where that thing
came from and that its instructions for synthetics to create an interdimensional distress call
of sorts. An organic mind cannot make sense of it, in fact its so incompatible that it
basically causes madness, and never has that been more clearly portrayed than by the first
person musings of Commander Helek. Although that scene in Picard kind of does a good job
paint them as insane. Helek is a Romulan Zhat Vash, which is completely
clandestine, even to other members of the Tal Shiar and the operative assigned to the
Orthrys. Every Romulan vessel has at least one publicly known Tal Shiar agent as a method
of control and fear from the Star Empire, but not every agent is secretly part of a
cult of broken minds that has become convinced that destroying synthetic intelligence is
worth sacrificing all for. Her actions are backed up by this level of insane devotion,
so that anything she does, not matter how short sighted or evil is justified by her
belief in the Zhat Vash cause which creates a rather one note villain.
Commander Medaka, captain of the Orthys however is the complete opposite. He is a level-headed
and understanding leader, on par with Riker and comparisons between the two are frequently
made. So of course, he has to go in order to allow for an antagonist, but it’s refreshing
to encounter a Romulan officer who, while not pleased that the Federation has abandoned
its plans to aid in the evacuation, is not going to take it out on the USS Titan, and
he genuinely has a compassionate heart. What I find interesting is the further insights
in to the Star Empire we get before everything goes to hell with the supernova. The Tal Shiar
and government control the flow of information and are now the only ones running evacuations
in Romulan space, meaning that if your family is within the blast zone, you better server
the Empire well so that their scheduled transport departs on time. This is the not-so-veiled
threat used by the Empire to maintain control over its citizens, even as the clock approaches
midnight. On top of this, the previous book established how the government was taking
the opportunity to leave behind those people it deemed troublesome or loose ends by keeping
them in the dark and pretending they had more time than they really did.
Unsurprisingly, we learn that the Jazari are in fact androids, from Andromeda in disguise,
complete with terminator style organic sheaths, so when Helek learns of this, boom, there’s
the conflict. It’s worth mentioning that Helek is the only one who knows about the
Zhat Vash, even the reinforcements she summons are simply Tal Shiar vessels, responding as
ordered, so secretive is the order. Which makes her come off as even more erratic to
the Orthrys crew. Another player on the Romulan side of things
is the character Vadrel, who at first appears to be much like the many other stand in characters
of the Orthrys, but this scientist harbours a dark past. An ongoing mystery of the Romulan
supernova is how it started, in Star Trek online, it was down to the Iconians meddling
in preparation for their return, but STO is not canon to the shows, and I don’t think
Trek TV is ready for another full on war series. So a new reason is needed. We do get hints
in both Picard, and the Last Best Hope that the supernova appears to have no natural cause,
which is also used to explain why it’s happening with only a few years of warning instead of
thousands of years and why it proliferates way more than it should. Vadrel seems to be
a scientist that was somehow involved in an experiment, years ago that may have triggered
the supernova and now he is living under an alias as a scientist on a ship, being utilised
by the Tal Shiar who hold this secret over his head to ensure his cooperation. But that
is all we get here. Mentions of an experiment, a guilt-ridden scientist and the Tal Shair
in the know. Speaking of STO not being canon, let’s talk
about this book’s place. It has been mentioned before that the Picard books and comics are
to be considered canon to the shows, but meeeeeh. Trek has always treated anything not on screen
as non-canonical and I have a hard time dissuading myself that this will all be brushed aside,
despite the fact that it hasn’t been so far. I do note a trend however, one that began
in Picard and continued in the books of borrowing from prior apocrypha, such as the comics marking
the USS Verity as an Odyssey class, straight from Star Trek Online and some general plot
points around the Post-Supernova Romulus, that is to say the fractured state and multiple
factions that the Star Empire has been reduced into.
We get another one here, which also draws straight from the lore of Picard which in
turn shares similarities with the STO timeline. Borg. The Romulans were dealing with the Borg
for as long as Starfleet was, if not longer, (as I’ve said before, check most maps of
the Star Trek galaxy and you can see that Romulan space is in between the Borg and the
UFP). We see this with the “artefact” which in 2399 has come under the ownership
of the Romulan Free State, where their research is being offered to other interested parties,
and even in the opening of Lower Decks, yeah I know, but that show makes a lot of allusions
to the greater Trek universe, even if they are tongue-in-cheek. The Tal Shiar ships that
show up to assist Helek are said to be similar designs to the Orthrys, but have a variety
of prongs and dangerous looking additions based off of prototype weapons, rumoured to
be Borg in origin. This heavily ties into other non-canonical sources which have the
Tal Shiar in particular delving deep into Borg research and outfitting their vessels
with the results. I’m not saying STO is canon, but I am saying that current Trek is
taking a lot of ideas from the myriad of surrounding materials and I’m okay with that because
there is a lot amid all that which would make for good additions to canon.
Switching from the Star Empire now, in terms of the Titan, I mentioned some of the crew
were the same as those in the Pocket Books novels and comparing the character’s backstories,
yeah they are meant to be the same people. However, some events from the books that featured
them could not possibly have happened. For example, the Destiny books culminated in a
big cross over event that wiped out the Borg altogether, which clearly hasn’t happened.
Equally, Riker in the apocrypha becomes a Rear Admiral in 2385, which again, is now
dismissed in favour of keeping him on the bridge which then ties into the Picard series
where he is still a captain-in-reserve. So it seems that Star Trek products are pulling
a bit of a Disney with their canon, in that now they are digging further into territory
already trod by other licenced works, they are scrapping it but not altogether, instead,
cherry-picking bits and pieces to keep. The fact that they included mention of a recent
Titan crew swap is done to explain away where the rest of the Pocket Books crew may have
gone, so in a way it attempts to preserve some of those characters and maybe even events
too, without directly referencing them. Then there is the surprise cameo at the end
from Spock, who has finished evacuating his unificationists and is now preparing to reach
out to La Forge and the Vulcan Science Academy for a project he’s keeping secret, but we
know to be the Red Matter bomb and the “Jellyfish” ship. Again, we have some selective lore being
plucked from prior stories, in this case the Countdown comic book where it was stated that
Geordie La Forge created the Jellyfish specifically to deliver the Red Matter. This comic used
to be one of these pseudo-canon stories that was true from the Kelvin timeline, but can
no longer be accurate because it featured a fully alive Captain Data. But again, even
in that we see Romulans messing with Borg tech.
How do you feel about the Star Trek books borrowing so selectively from past works?
On the whole, I like it, but I can see issues where it muddies the water, like with the
Titan books, at least up to a point. Ideally I’d love to see a curated list of tales
marked out as in-continuity, but that would devalue things not on that list, so that ain’t
gonna happen. I think this is the best way of softly folding in as much of the expanded
lore as possible into future Trek projects, even if it is frustratingly vague, but all
this I feel only really matters to someone like me who is overly concerned with the Trek
universe as a whole. Then again, surely it is those kinds of people who buy the books?
In the end, it has little baring on the book itself which as I mentioned earlier was fine.
I was just hoping for more of a tie in with the lore as a whole and sort of want to prompt
a discussion. Have you read this book, do you intend to and if so, why did you watch
the spoilers section? I think if you found “Last Best Hope” to be a bit dry and basically
an exposition dump, then this is a more cohesive tale on a smaller scale. Thanks for watching
my impression video on The Dark Veil and I’ll see you again in another lore, gameplay or
review video. Thanks again and Goodbye!