Cold calculation
Cold calculation (English title: Cold Equations ) is a 2012 published trilogy of the American science fiction -Romanreihe Star Trek: The Next Generation . Written by US author David Mack , it is part of the literary sequel to the television series Spaceship Enterprise - The Next Century after the plot of the fourth film based on the television series Star Trek: Nemesis . The trilogy was published in English by Simon - & - Schuster - Imprint Pocket Books , and in German by Cross Cult publisher for the first time in 2015 , both as paperbacks and as e-books . The trilogy consists of the novels The Persistence of Memory , Silent Arms and Diabolus ex Machina . Flashbacks aside, the action takes place in 2384, just over four years after the film Nemesis , in which the android Data died. The story of the trilogy includes the resurrection of Data.
action
The persistence of memory
Flashback: 2367 to 2384
In a flashback, the android Dr. Noonien Soong as a first-person narrator of his life between 2367 and 2384. Initially, Soong on his home planet Omicron Theta is threatened with imminent death due to a catastrophe, in the face of which he transfers all his knowledge to a self-created android of the same name. Soong dies in the catastrophe, while his other creation, the android Data, survives and is soon found by Starfleet. Instead of the human Soong, the android Soong now lives. This is able to behave like a chameleon , ie to adapt its appearance to the environment and the respective needs, in order to be able to live undetected and camouflaged. Using cover identities, he has lived on different planets for years and runs several front companies and other companies from the background, and also works as a casino magnate. In addition, he secretly observes Data's career and noticed around 2371 that Data had used Lore's emotion chip.
Soong repeatedly refers to his former human wife Juliana. This had once left him when he was still alive. Soong later created an android who embodied Juliana and who sees himself as a human rather than an artificial being. However, this Juliana also left her husband again. Well, in early 2370, the android Soong notices that the human Juliana has remarried and is shocked. A little later she dies because of incorrect biometric programming by Soong. He cannot seize her dead body because Data gets ahead of him. He later learns that his one-time mentor Waslowick, who is a centuries-old, immortal being, developed a holotronic android brain, an advanced type of artificial brain for his own androids. Therefore, and because Waslowick has meanwhile created an android in Juliana's form, Soong becomes jealous of Waslowick. Shortly after Data's death and the transfer of its memory to B-4, Soong begins to build an android to replace Data, because B-4 will no longer be able to live in about four years due to a lack of maturity. Before Soong can complete his project, the almost finished, new data Android is destroyed in the Borg invasion in 2381. In early 2384, Soong went to Galor IV to steal B-4 from the Daystrom Institute. However, a squad of Breen soldiers beat him to the theft.
Present: 2384
Six Soong androids are stolen from Starfleet scientist Bruce Maddox's laboratory at the Daystrom Institute on Galor IV. This also includes B4, the only one that is still functional, the defective Lal and Lore, and three prototypes. A previously unknown Soong Android comes into contact with the Enterprise crew and makes a secret agreement. Then the Enterprise chases a spaceship, which in turn pursues a camouflaged Breen spaceship, for days to a planet. An outside team secretly follows the wanted man to the surface of the planet. There he faces the team as Dr. Noonien Soong before. He shows the team a huge factory hall that contains several thousand Soong androids, which the Breen created based on the stolen androids. With this, the Breen want to have an army of expendable soldiers and gain strength in the Typhon Pact. The team can't prevent the Breen military from leaving the planet in a small spaceship that has about 100 Soong androids on board. The away team is arrested by the Breen on suspicion of espionage while cut off from the Enterprise. Choudhury, who is on the away team, is killed by a Breen. The Enterprise hides from a Breen spaceship arriving on the planet by diving into the atmosphere of a gas giant . But she is forced to show up again soon, also to bring the away team back. After receiving the information about the android factory, Picard has the factory destroyed by torpedo fire. After that, the Breen spaceships fly away from the planet. Before the Enterprise takes the away team back on board, Soong, with La Forge's help, rescues B-4 shortly before it cascades. In addition, Soong sacrifices himself for his son Data, whom he resuscitates by transferring memories and memory from Data from B-4 into himself and also providing Data with his own knowledge. The away team returns to the Enterprise with Data and B-4, who brings the dead Lal with him. However, Data immediately leaves the enterprise to look for Waslowick. He wants to use his knowledge to revive Lal.
Silent weapons
The Breen Confederation does not see the Typhon Pact being led strong enough by the Romulan Star Empire and is striving for supremacy in the pact. It is also about compensating for the tactical disadvantage with regard to the slipstream propulsion that the Federation has in contrast to the Typhon Pact. As part of a covert operation, the Breen use some Soong androids to break into a bank on the planet Orion. Orion is a vs. neutral world to the Typhon Pact and the Khitomer powers. Data gets information about Waslowick from Starfleet intelligence officer Thom on Orion. A few hours before the break-in at the bank, Thom is found murdered and Data is arrested by Starfleet on suspicion of murder. In parallel to these events, Federation President Bacco is currently on Orion and is holding talks with the Gorn Emperor Sozzerozs with the aim of the Gorn withdrawing from the Typhon Pact and becoming allies of the Federation. The Gorn secretly used the summit meeting that takes place in the bank building, on behalf of the Breen, only as an excuse to keep Bacco at the place for as long as possible.
The Sirriam spacecraft, a Federation Security interceptor, is ambushed and kidnapped by the Breen while in orbit of Tirana III. When the Enterprise is on its way to search for the Sirriam in the relevant planetary system and cannot find it, an emergency call from Orion's Data reaches it. While the Breen kidnappers hide from the Enterprise, the Enterprise flies to Orion and, at Picard's request, receives Bacco's promise to clear up the problem that Data is now in. When the Enterprise field team determines that the bank director has been replaced by a Soong android, the latter escapes. At the same time, a Soong Android trained by the Breen, which has assumed the form of Bacco's chief of staff Piniero, opens fire in the conference room where Bacco and Sozzerozs are currently staying. Piniero's body is found a little later. About five security guards on both sides die in the attack. With the appearance of the other Soong androids, Data is no longer under high suspicion of murder. He helps the Enterprise crew clear up what happened, but cannot prevent two other Soong androids under Breen control from breaking into the shelter for Bacco and Sozzerozs and causing a bloodbath on their way there. When they arrive in the room and have the opportunity to kill the two heads of state, they are rendered harmless by Data. Bacco has long since recognized that Sozzerozs is pursuing a delaying tactic with the summit meeting.
When analyzing the frequencies used to control the enemy androids, one finds out on the Enterprise that these emanate from the Federation planet Pyrithia IV. There, the Enterprise discovers a recently abandoned Breen command station, from which over 100 Soong androids spread across Federation territory are remotely controlled. It is concluded that an android invasion of the Federation is in progress. Or, this can be a sham to distract the Federation from the fact that the Breen are in fact going to wipe out the Tholian species. It turns out that the bank attack on Orion must have been just a diversionary maneuver. Sozzerozs has also found this out. He is deeply disappointed that the Breen accepted his death in the process. The Breen also wanted to ensure that the Gorn are discredited as a serious negotiating partner for the Federation and that they have no chance of an alliance with the Federation. Disappointed at this betrayal by the Breen and because he was drawn to the Federation, Sozzerozs sent the Federation information about the Breen's plan.
The Enterprise crew finds out that the pattern, according to which the androids commanded by the Breen are distributed, is used to create a corridor free of Federation security forces in space, with which the Breen want to get something out of Federation territory. The starting point of the corridor is Tirana III, where the Enterprise arrives quickly after a maximum warp flight. She thwarts the wreckage of a crashed spaceship from a parallel universe from being salvaged by the civilian spaceship Basirico, apparently under Breen control. To do this, Picard had the Basirico destroyed by torpedo fire without having identified the people on board. When Picard threatens to bombard the Breen spaceship Mlotek, which is in orbit to protect the Basirico, it returns to Breen territory. Brex, who was responsible for the secret operation of the Breen, was then deposed as Domo - that is, as head of state - among other things because he risked a war against the Federation, and replaced by Pran.
Data leaves the Enterprise again to continue its private search. He finds his mother Juliana Tainer on a planet, from whom he learns to his surprise that Juliana's husband Waslowick has been kidnapped by the community of artificial intelligence.
Diabolus ex Machina
An immense machine appears in the center of the Milky Way. This uses artificial wormholes to hurl planets, stars and other celestial bodies into a black hole known as the Singularity Abbadon . In doing so, it gradually destroys the galaxy. The traveler Wesley Crusher is a witness of the phenomenon and does not want to watch him sit idly, whereas his fellow travelers resignedly move on. Following Q's advice, he turns to Picard for help. Wesley then moves the Enterprise to the scene of the action via hyperwarp . There the Enterprise begins to research the phenomenon. It can be seen that the machine intends to collide Abbadon with Sagittarius A * and to use the resulting energy to transfer itself to the galaxy Messier 101, 21 million light years away . In doing so, the entire galaxy would lose its subspace , making travel and communication at faster than light speeds impossible and the technological development of today's civilizations would be set far behind. Since the machine apparently represents a colony of artificial intelligence and thus a form of life, the Enterprise wants to communicate with it. However, the away team used for the communication attempt is excruciatingly massacred by the machine.
Meanwhile, a subgroup of the community of artificial intelligences is trying to force the imprisoned immortal human Waslowick, who is now called Akharin, to divulge information on how to revive dead artificial intelligences. In doing so, the group led by Gatt and his deputy, Tire, wants the same freedom from the termination of their existence that Akharin enjoys in their eyes. The community threatens him with violence against his holotronic daughter Rhea McAdams, who is also imprisoned and who continues to love Data. Soon Data appears on Gatt's spaceship Altanexa, on which Rhea and Akharin are trapped and which is endowed with a consciousness. When Data visits Akharin, Gatt also detains him in order to force Akharin to divulge the information requested by the group.
In order to communicate with the machine, the enterprise crew asks Data for help and sends Wesley out, who then transfers himself to the Altanexa. Gatt allegedly agrees that data on board the Altanexa may be brought to the center of the galaxy and thus to the machine and the Enterprise. After the Altanexa has arrived there, Gatt refuses to help the Enterprise. To Picard's shock, he explains that he approves and wants to support the plans for the machine. He wants to achieve that the community of artificial intelligences unites with the electrical body, by which the machine is controlled, that it also becomes immortal and that the galaxy is freed from the "plague of organic life".
Gatt forces Data to barbarically torture Akharin, forcing him to divulge the information that is still desired. With the information received, Gatt, who is judged by Tire as fanatical, wants to get the machine to agree to his request. While Gatt is pushing ahead with his project, Tire rebels against him and breaks out of the captivity in which Gatt has put him. When he tries to free Data, Akharin and Rhea, he is noticed by Gatt.
The machine rejects Gatt's request after realizing that Tire equates his true self with his physical form, and judges Gatt's argument as inconclusive. A little later, the Enterprise succeeds in communicating with the machine. However, Gatt still cannot be convinced to abandon its mission and tries to destroy Gatt on the Altanexa, which causes the Altanexa to be sucked into the gravitational vortex of a wormhole created by the machine.
Data flees takes Gatt prisoner and escapes with him in a shuttle from the Altanexa, which is destroyed in Abbadon's accretion disk . Before Data returns to the Enterprise with Gatt, he can still save Akharin, although - as if spoiled for choice - he lets Rhea die. A few minutes before the work of the machine would be completed, Data, Wesley and Picard, after realizing that the machine is creating a work of art to be preserved for posterity, can convince the machine to abort it. The solution involves the help of travelers and the creation of a cosmic network that connects all galaxies together.
Data lets Gatt, who now sees his behavior as a mistake, return to the community of artificial intelligences and Akharin resuscitates his daughter Lal.