"Enterprise: The Romulan War"

[WarpGirl]

It's cool. No worries OK.

[honeybee]

Big spoiler and theory ahead.

SPOILER!!!:

I'm guessing that Denak and Sopek are the same person. And that Y'cha has messed with Trip/Sodek's memory enough that he doesn't realize it. I'm pretty sure that Denak could have seen T'Pol on Vulcan before she went to see T'Pau on Mt. Seleya, then gotten to Achenar II to be Sopek for awhile and then returned to Vulcan to be Denak.

Anyone who can poke holes in this theory, feel free. Otherwise, place your bets. Its going to be a long while before the next book comes out.

[pdsldl]

SPOILER!!!:

Sopek/Denak seems plausible but that's what bothers me about the whole leave Trip on Vulcan deal. Why after having melded with them and realizing that something is really off about them and that Trip's memories have been altered would T'Pol not insist on investigating further before leaving Trip unprotected on Vulcan with them. She knows what Vulcans are capable of and yet she's trusting the safety of her mate to questionable circumstances with little objection and no real warnings to Trip. If someone had melded with Trip to change his memories wouldn't they know his true identity? And wouldn't T'Pol be concerned as to who that is and why they've chosen to keep it to themselves so far?

[honeybee]

SPOILER!!!:

I do think its very strange that T'Pol left Trip on Vulcan by himself. Clearly, they both felt that Archer needed T'Pol as his first officer and that took priority. I also think that Martin made it clear that T'Pol has a long standing friendship with Denak and Y'cha and this might be clouding her judgement.

Y'cha does know Trip's true identity - and on top of that, she has melded with him and might even know he's got a bond with T'Pol My guess is that Denak knows Trip's identity given that he told T'Pol that there was someone waiting back at her house that he was sure she wanted to see. I'm pretty sure that Trip doesn't know that Denak knows, though. And Tevik isn't supposed to know.

I do think the book was contrived in the way it separated Trip and T'Pol at the end. And again, I think T'Pol's going to regret trusting her old friends Y'cha and Denak.

And if Denak is Sopek, I still don't know if he's working for the Romulans or the Vulcans.

[Silverbullet]

Well for sure Trip should have left with T-Pol before those goons picked him up. T-Pol surely must have known leaving him alone would be too dangerous. Hate this cliff Hanger junk. Can't an author just end one book wwith somethinng better to lead in to the next book Like perhaps a wedding for TnT?

[Reanok]

When it comes to

SPOILER!!!:

Denak and Sopek/chulev they're not the same person at all they're 2 different men. In Kobayashi Maru it says Denak has been badly scarred from previous V'Shar missions he lost an eye and it's been replaced with an artificial one and is missing several fingers on one of his hands and is badly scarred from previous missions. Sopek /Chulev may have been in cahoots with Y'Cha and maybe they're double agents betraying the Vulcans we'll have to wait until the next to see what happens next.

[honeybee]

SPOILER!!!:

I know Denak and Sopek are presented as two different men - but I'm not convinced they are two different men yet. But you make a very good point about the scarring and the fingers. Of course, in the future prosthetics could explain all of that away. If they can turn Trip into a Vulcan. . .including green blood, they could figure a way to hide/mask Denak's missing fingers and scarring.

Again, I'm not 100% sure. It's just a theory. They could very well be two people.

And as for a TnT wedding, they practically had one. My guess is that Y'cha and Denak (whoever he may be) consider themselves married in the Syrrannite way because of the bond, not a ceremony. I would like to find out what happened to their childhood fiances - given it would shed light on how Vulcans handle people bonding with others when they are betrothed to someone else.

But TnT are married in the syrannite way at the end, that's pretty clear.

[Reanok]

It's an interesting idea we've got along time to wait until the next book maybe then we'll get some answers to alot of the questions being discussed here.

SPOILER!!!:

I do the like the fact T'Pol considers Trip as her husband and the bond between being further explored was long overdue.Now that T'Pol has to return to Vulcan they can find out about who it was that tampered with Trip's memories and made him so distrustful of Y'Cha and Denak as well. I still think Sopek is a different enemy.But we'll have to wait an see until the next book.

[honeybee]

SPOILER!!!:

Another thing I'm unsure of is whether T'Pau knows who Sodek is in that final scene, and she is just calling him by his Vulcan name to keep his cover. My guess is that if T'Pol told T'Pau she could trust Sodek, then T'Pau probably knows that Trip is Sodek. That would explain why someone as important as T'Pau would recruit someone as insignificant as Sodek for what appears to be an important task. But not 100% sure. But we do know that whatever mission T'Pau is going to send "Sodek" on - it's going to keep him from going back to Earth and Starfleet.

[Transwarp]

I've read "The Good that Men Do" and I just finished "Kobayashi Maru", and it was hard for me to like them, since I can't accept their basic premise: Trip as a secret agent. He is off masquerading as a member of a species that he knows nothing about, and whose language he does not speak. Oh, but he has a Universal Translator! And somehow it must make everyone around him ignore the fact that his lips are speaking English but the sounds are Romulan, like a badly dubbed Kung Fu movie. Sorry, it just doesn't work for me. The Trip I saw in the series does not have the training or the temperment to go undercover, as he does in these books.

Of course, I understand why the authors did it; they needed a way to fix the finale and explain 'the abomination', a reasonable way they could explain why everyone thinks Trip is dead:

"Oh! Oh! I've got it! What if Trip had to fake his death so he could go on a secret mission in Romulan space! Wouldn't that be cool?"
"Whoa, totally awesome, dude! Let's write it!"

So, by bending over backwards to accommodate *the_abomination*, they have introduced what for me is a fatal flaw in their work.
The final episode could have been explained away much more simply in a half-page, as I do here:

Riker finished the glazed doughnut with a single bite, and reached into the box for the last of the jellied doughnuts--raspberry, he noted with satisfaction. He was about to bring it up to his open mouth, but the chime of the comm panel stayed his hand.
Annoyed, he brushed the sugar flakes from his beard and stabbed the transmit button. "Riker."
"Sir, this is Crewman Giles in Holo Maintenance. We have a bit of a problem."
"What do you mean? What problem?" A small drop of raspberry jelly oozed from the doughnut onto Riker's thumb. He licked it off while waiting for the crewman's response.
"Ahh, it's about the holoprogram you checked out yesterday. I was debugging the holomatrix, testing some new AI routines, and it seems the program I was using got accidentally written back to the 22nd History database. There are several, uh, significant modifications to the program you viewed. I've since replaced it with the original, if you're still interested."
While the crewman prattled on and on about databases and modifications, Riker attacked and defeated the doughnut. "Mm nob iberebbed emmmy more." Riker mumbled around the remains of the doughnut.
"I'm sorry sir, I didn't catch that..."
Riker swallowed hastily, "I said, I'm NOT interested any more."
"Oh. Very good, sir."
The connection light went dark, and Riker peered into the box for his next victim.

There. Abomination explained. (And my first--and last--Finale Fix!)

[Aikiweezie]

I've read "The Good that Men Do" and I just finished "Kobayashi Maru", and it was hard for me to like them, since I can't accept their basic premise: Trip as a secret agent. He is off masquerading as a member of a species that he knows nothing about, and whose language he does not speak. Oh, but he has a Universal Translator! And somehow it must make everyone around him ignore the fact that his lips are speaking English but the sounds are Romulan, like a badly dubbed Kung Fu movie. Sorry, it just doesn't work for me. The Trip I saw in the series does not have the training or the temperment to go undercover, as he does in these books.

Even though I LOVED "Romulan War" I have to agree with on all points. Now assuming that they chose Trip because of his engineering expertise alone, I could see them sending him off to "spy school" or whatever they've got for a few months to prepare for the mission. But they didn't do that. I also can't seem him leaving T'Pol to think he was dead. Even if things weren't great between them at the moment he made the decision, I can't see his character doing that. Unless, of course, he knoew that through the bond she would know he's not really dea.

[honeybee]

I can't really complain because the Trip as spy parts are my favorite sections of all the books. I would have liked to see him get more spy training though, but I think they explained that with saying they needed someone with Trip's expertise in Romulan space very quickly.

I actually think that Martin/Mangels were not sure they were going to continue the TnT relationship when they wrote Last Full Measure and The Good That Men Do. But I agree that Trip didn't get enough training from Section 31. I did get that his decision to join them was in reaction to grief over Baby Elizabeth and over the apparent end of their relationship, I thought that was pretty clear. And it was pretty clear that T'Pol never believed he was dead because of the bond. But I also agree that Trip, Archer, Malcom and Phlox were all royal sh**s for not telling T'Pol Trip was alive, that's not how I would have handled it.

But until this last book, I've always thought the TnT relationship could go either way in the books. KM left me believing it could very well end unhappily for them. I loved The Romulan War

SPOILER!!!:

because it makes it so clear that they are back together, essentially married and the relationship isn't going to end.

Since they set it up that Trip never comes officially back to life, the writers are a bit hamstrung by that. But they are trying to respect what appeared on screen while undoing it.

[Aikiweezie]

I actually think that Martin/Mangels were not sure they were going to continue the TnT relationship when they wrote Last Full Measure and The Good That Men Do. But I agree that Trip didn't get enough training from Section 31. I did get that his decision to join them was in reaction to grief over Baby Elizabeth and over the apparent end of their relationship, I thought that was pretty clear. And it was pretty clear that T'Pol never believed he was dead because of the bond. But I also agree that Trip, Archer, Malcom and Phlox were all royal sh**s for not telling T'Pol Trip was alive, that's not how I would have handled it.

But until this last book, I've always thought the TnT relationship could go either way in the books. KM left me believing it could very well end unhappily for them. I loved The Romulan War

SPOILER!!!:

because it makes it so clear that they are back together, essentially married and the relationship isn't going to end.

Since they set it up that Trip never comes officially back to life, the writers are a bit hamstrung by that. But they are trying to respect what appeared on screen while undoing it.

Agreed on all points! I am very curious as to what will come next for my favorite couple and how Martin and Mangels, if he's involved, work out the connection to "Last Full Measure." If they even attempt to..

[Asso]

I've read "The Good that Men Do" and I just finished "Kobayashi Maru", and it was hard for me to like them, since I can't accept their basic premise: Trip as a secret agent. He is off masquerading as a member of a species that he knows nothing about, and whose language he does not speak. Oh, but he has a Universal Translator! And somehow it must make everyone around him ignore the fact that his lips are speaking English but the sounds are Romulan, like a badly dubbed Kung Fu movie. Sorry, it just doesn't work for me. The Trip I saw in the series does not have the training or the temperment to go undercover, as he does in these books.

Of course, I understand why the authors did it; they needed a way to fix the finale and explain 'the abomination', a reasonable way they could explain why everyone thinks Trip is dead:

"Oh! Oh! I've got it! What if Trip had to fake his death so he could go on a secret mission in Romulan space! Wouldn't that be cool?"
"Whoa, totally awesome, dude! Let's write it!"

So, by bending over backwards to accommodate *the_abomination*, they have introduced what for me is a fatal flaw in their work.
The final episode could have been explained away much more simply in a half-page...

Impossible to add anything better to these perfect words.

[honeybee]

Agreed on all points! I am very curious as to what will come next for my favorite couple and how Martin and Mangels, if he's involved, work out the connection to "Last Full Measure." If they even attempt to..

I'm sure they will attempt to.

SPOILER!!!:

The last scene with Trip and T'Pau leads me to believe that Trip is definitely going to get embroiled in something that leads him to being a Vulcan for the rest of his life. I am hoping that his life won't be as glum as portrayed in LFM, since it seems that he's now married to T'Pol. If he must be a Vulcan, he can at least spend his life with her.