Star Trek: Destiny

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Star Trek: Destiny is one of David Mack wrote trilogy, in the fictional Star Trek - universe plays. It consists of the novels Gods of the Night , Ordinary Mortals, and Lost Souls . The novels were first published in English in 2008 by Pocket Books and in German in 2010 by Cross Cult . The main plot takes place in 2381, about a year and a half after the plot of the tenth Star Trek movie Nemesis , and thus belongs to the literary continuation of Star Trek after Nemesis . The novels represent a crossover from the Star Trek novel and television series The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , Voyager , Titan and Enterprise . The trilogy is about a devastating large-scale attack by the Borg on the United Federation of Planets and theirs Allies as well as its history. The origin of the Borg species is also discussed.

action

prehistory

In 2380 there was another confrontation between the Federation and the Borg. It turns out that the Borg have evolved and are now aiming not just at assimilation but also at absorption. A Borg cube absorbs the planet Pluto and several Starfleet spaceships on its flight to earth, whereby the cube grows. Starfleet officers use a trick to destroy the cube and thus thwart the reassimilation of Picard and Seven of Nine into the collective and the destruction of the earth. At the beginning of the following year, the Borg threatened the Federation again and threatened it with complete annihilation, since its biological and technological properties had become unimportant. A cube destroys the Federation worlds Barolia and Acamar.

Gods of the night

22nd century

In 2156, the Starfleet spaceship USS Columbia is attacked by enemy Romulans in the border area between the Federation and Romulans. During the Columbia's escape maneuver, the warp drive and subspace communication capabilities fail completely. In order to ensure the supply of the crew with food, Captain Erika Hernandez has the ship fly to an apparently inhabited planet over 11 light years away. So that the flight does not last too long, it takes place with maximum impulse. Due to the time dilation, it only lasts about 60 days for the crew , but it actually lasts 12 years.

In 2168, Columbia arrives at the planet called Erigol, home to the Caeliar species, previously unknown to the Federation. Every city on Erigol can function as a spaceship at the same time, the cities are also called city ships. When they arrived in the capital, Axion, the away team learned that the Caeliar refused to allow the Starfleet crew to return to their homeland so as not to endanger their isolation. The Caeliar are pacifist , have a collective consciousness called “Gestalt” and a huge apparatus for subspace communication with which they want to establish contact with civilizations that have evolved further than they themselves, they call this project “Great Work”.

Some of the Columbia crew, including MACO soldiers, are against Hernandez's decision to venture out, and a mutiny begins as a result . The mutineers blackmail some of the Caeliar and force them to open a subspace tunnel to return to their homeland. As a result, there is a feedback pulse from the Caeliar it contacted galaxy and star of Erigol starts to supernova to be. As a result, the Columbia with the mutineers and a Caeliar hostage on board is forced to escape through a subspace tunnel. Because of the deadly radiation in the tunnel, all crew members die instantly. The Columbia crashes on a planet with one Caeliar on board. Since the planet Erigol is also falling apart, part of the Caeliar flees through subspace tunnels with the city ships Axion, Mantilis and Kintana, while another, larger part dies. Hernandez, five other humans and twelve Caeliar survive in the city ship Axion, which is transported almost 60,000 light years from Earth and 600 years into the past.

24th century

In 2373, the crew of the USS Defiant accidentally discovered the Columbia wreck on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. Because of the onset of the Dominion War, it cannot be adequately investigated at first. In 2381, the crew of the Starfleet spaceship USS Aventine investigated the Columbia wreck on the planet. The Aventine has been commanded by Ezri Dax since the ship's captain and some crew members recently died in attacks by the Borg. Dax hopes that by solving the riddle of why the Columbia has traveled over 70,000 light years in just a few years, help in clarifying the question of how it is possible for the Borg to cover such great distances in such a short time. In the course of the investigation of the wreck, three crew members of the Aventine initially mysteriously die. The Aventine chases a Caeliar who suddenly escapes by shuttle through a subspace tunnel to the Azure Nebula in the Beta Quadrant, near a supernova reserve. An away team finds Caeliar, who was once hostage on the Columbia, and learns from him shortly before his death that he - living in the wreck for a long time - was looking for vital energy and unintentionally killed the crew members.

Meanwhile, the Borg, who suddenly appeared with several cubes, surprisingly quickly attack some worlds of the Federation and the Klingons for reasons previously unknown to the Federation. The Borg sometimes wipe out the entire population of planets, cities and space stations, killing tens of thousands. The Federation is forced to mobilize all defense forces, including cargo ships. In order to defend their planets and space stations, some Starfleet ships sometimes go so far that they fly kamikaze attacks against Borg cubes. In this way they prevent a Borg cube from wiping out the Klingon planet Khitomer. The Enterprise-E is the only starship in Starfleet equipped with trans-phase torpedoes. Apart from the kamikaze flights, these are the only effective weapon the Starfleet can use to destroy Borg cubes. The Starfleet leadership is against Picard's request to equip other Starfleet ships with this technology because they fear that the Borg could then adapt to it. Picard briefly comes into contact with a Borg queen who announces her intention that the human race should be completely wiped out. The inferiority of Starfleet to the Borg, along with the deaths of so many individuals, and the so far open question about the reason for the suddenly changed tactics of the Borg, throw Picard into despair. On the Enterprise one discovers possible references to the place of origin of the Borg on wreckage. This also includes the Azure Nebula, to which the Enterprise immediately sets course.

Meanwhile, Federation President Bacco is appointing Seven of Nine, her new deputy security advisor. In addition, the Klingon Chancellor Martok and his government agree to fight alongside the Federation against the Borg.

Parallel to these events, a few triquant waves were discovered by chance on the USS Titan in the Beta Quadrant, which could indicate Borg activities. At the starting point a few light years away, the Titan discovers a planet-like sphere . As a Titan away team investigates its insides, it encounters some Caeliar and Captain Hernandez, from whom it is welcomed to the planet New Erigol.

Ordinary mortals

16th to 24th century

Hernandez and her human companions have been moved to the year 1519 as a result of the supernova. They live as prisoners of the Caeliar in their city ship Axion. With the Axion, the Caeliar have been looking for a new, suitable planet for Axion for years. In order to keep their existence and their great work secret and not to influence the passage of time, they want to save energy with their city ship. Hernandez learns from the Caeliar that the energy impulse that the Caeliar once received from a galaxy they were observing came from their own technology, apparently from the city ship Kintana, which has been moved much further into the past than Axion.

The people of Axion are forced to pass their time and are sometimes bored, so that two of them attempt suicide in desperation . The former chief medical officer of Columbia dies and Sidra Valerian, once a communications officer, is seriously injured. To save Valerian, Hernandez agrees that Inyx will perform an experimental treatment on her in which she will be injected with Catome. This fails, however, so that Valerian dies.

Axion drifted slowly through space for decades with a weak energy signature - until 1574, when the Caeliar found a suitable planet for Axion. When Axion landed on the planet the Caeliar call New-Erigol, Hernandez and her former first mate Fletcher are now gray and decrepit. After Fletcher died of natural causes, Hernandez is the only person from Columbia among the Caeliar. While the Caeliar continue their great work and build a shell around the planet and the nearby star, Hernandez is convinced by Inyx to carry out the type of treatment that was once tried to save Valerian. Inyx carries out the procedure with Hernandez secretly and without the consent of his conspecifics. Inyx injects her Catome - nanorobots that ensure that the effects of aging in Hernandez are reversed and that then remain in her body. The procedure is successful and Hernandez is as young as a 20-year-old again, but remains trapped on New Erigol forever.

Decades later, Hernandez still lives on Neu-Erigol, but is not happy despite a life in eternal youth, so that she comes to the conclusion that she is planning an attempt to escape. It takes several centuries to prepare for it, but is discovered by Inyx and placed under increased security by his conspecifics. In 2168, Hernandez and the Caeliar commemorate their escape from the supernova that their other selves will perform that year.

2381

When the Enterprise reached the Azure Nebula, it was attacked by Borg cubes, the hull ruptured and several crew members killed, maimed or otherwise injured. With the help of the arriving Aventine, the Enterprise can be saved from destruction. Enterprise and Aventine examine the nebula and discover that it contains several exits from subspace tunnels that could serve as a gateway into Federation territory for the Borg. To prevent the Borg from further penetrating Federation territory, Enterprise and Aventine want to mine the tunnel exits, but they cannot do this for technical reasons. Picard then ordered a fleet of spaceships from the Federation headquarters to form an expeditionary force to repel the Borg.

Nonetheless, the Aventine dares to fly through one of the tunnels. It does not leave the tunnel in the gamma quadrant, but in the delta quadrant. In the vicinity of the tunnel exit there, the Aventine discovers a huge field of rubble, parts of which are made of Borg material. Shortly after this discovery, the Aventine meets the "children of the storm", previously unknown forms of life that took many years to cleanse this part of space from the Borg. The Aventine is asked by the strangers to leave the area and returns through the tunnel into the Azure Nebula.

Meanwhile, the Federation Council meets with leaders from other powers in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants to discuss the Borg threat. Klingons, Ferengi and Cardassians, among others, agree to cooperate with the Federation to fight the Borg. Bacco uses a trick to get the Breen to cooperate with the Ferengi and not with the Tholians, who are hostile to the Federation.

Meanwhile, the members of the Titan external team around Troi and Tuvok learn that from now on they are prisoners of the Caeliar who want to keep their existence a secret. The away team tries to escape, but unsuccessfully, as they are noticed by the Caeliar. Troi tries to convince Hernandez to help the away team escape.

The Enterprise flies through one of the subspace tunnels and thus reaches a previously unknown galaxy in which there are some stars that are completely encased and have obviously been brought into this state by an extremely advanced civilization. An attempt by the Enterprise to contact the strangers is unsuccessful before the Enterprise returns to the Azure Mists.

Enterprise and Aventine fly through another tunnel together to explore and, after passing through it, find themselves in the Delta Quadrant, in the middle of a plasma stream of two double stars. There they are attacked by a fleet of Hirogen, but do not flee back through the tunnel so as not to draw the Hirogen's attention to him. Both ships have broken hulls, dead, injured and missing as a result of the attacks, and both ships are boarded by some Hirogen.

While Enterprise and Aventine are prevented from returning to Federation territory, the expeditionary force led by Voyager - consisting of Starfleet, Romulan, Klingon and Cardassian spaceships - gathers in front of the openings of the subspace tunnels in the Azure Nebula. Meanwhile, the Aventine and Enterprise crews manage to repel or kill the Hirogen. Both ships manage to return to the Azure Nebula through the subspace tunnel at the last second. The crews are shocked at the sight of a huge field of debris in the azure fog, which represents the remains of the expeditionary force. Among them is the badly damaged Voyager, whose Captain Chakotay reports that the fleet was wiped out by the Borg. It becomes clear that the Borg have invaded Federation territory with an armada of over 7,400 cubes and are now about to destroy the Federation worlds. After the Borg fleet invaded the subspace tunnel, all of these tunnels were closed. Aventine and Enterprise set course for earth.

The Titan crew determines that the subspace tunnels are used by the Caeliar to observe distant parts of the galaxy. Hernandez suddenly appears to Riker on the Titan and tells him to fly with the Titan to the Azure Nebula before the Caeliar, who are responsible for destroying the subspace tunnels, notice Hernandez's disappearance.

Lost souls

4527 BC Chr.

The city ship Mantilis was destroyed by the supernova in 4527 BC. Chr. Displaced. The passengers also include some of the original Columbia crew and MACO soldiers. Mantilis made an emergency landing on an Earth-like planet and was severely damaged as a result. The people fight for their survival in an arctic-wintry fjord landscape. The Caeliar threaten to die soon outside of their vital environment, so that they ask the people for help. However, they refuse because they see their health endangered by a union with the Caeliar. A few weeks later, the handful of remaining humans visit Mantilis in order to accept the help of the Caeliar. Once there, however, they are suddenly attacked by strangers and turned into cyborgs . Later that year, some representatives of the Kindir species, who are native to this planet - called Arehaz - discover the city ship and are also assimilated as cyborgs by two strangers.

2381

Hernandez is on the Titan, which arrives at the Azure Nebula, and tells Riker the story of her life and her captivity with the Caeliar. This includes that the azure nebula was once created by the supernova. A little later, Enterprise and Aventine return to the Azure Nebula, where they meet with Titan. The captains of the three ships meet on the Titan Hernandez.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the now released Borg do not have the possibility of absorption as feared. Chancellor Martok leads a fleet of Klingon warships, which is defeated by the Borg and is blown up. The fleet of Borg cubes moves towards Earth, destroying, among other things, the Federation world Deneva, whereby billions more individuals die on the Federation side. The Borg fleet is about eight hours away from Earth. In the meantime, other Starfleet spaceships have also been equipped with trans-phase torpedoes, against which the Borg are feared to become resistant. Bacco faces the downfall of the federation and calls its members of government to a meeting similar to a hangman's meal .

Under the direction of Dax, a team of crew members from Enterprise, Titan and Aventine begins to implement a plan largely devised by Hernandez. This stipulates that Hernandez goes on board a Borg ship, uses her Catome to pretend to the Borg drones that she is the Borg queen, and thus causes the Borg cubes to break off the attack on the Federation and its allies . Although Picard rejects the plan as too dangerous, it goes ahead. He succeeds initially and the five Borg fleets, each around five cubes strong, are induced to break off their already started attacks on Vulcano and other worlds on which thousands have already died and to shoot each other. Meanwhile, the real Borg queen notices that there is an intruder in the collective consciousness, so that Hernandez has to sever her connection to the Vinculum.

Hernandez learned from their connection to the Borg collective that this is very similar to the Caeliar figure, and concludes from this that Caeliar were involved in the creation of the Borg. Contrary to the previous assumption of the Caeliar, the city ship Mantilis had survived its journey through the subspace tunnel. The Caeliar and humans on this ship must have dared to try to unite for the purpose of survival, whereby the negative properties of both species have mixed and a pathological reflection of Caeliar and humans developed. Paranoia and fanatical desire for agreement of the Caeliar mixed with barbarism and aggression on the human side. The blame for the suffering caused by the Borg is not borne by the Borg drones - who are only slaves, in other words lost souls - but the Borg Queen.

Based on this knowledge, Hernandez decides to contact the Caeliar in Axion so that they can prevent the Borg from further annihilating the Federation. Although the plan carries the grave risk of the Borg assimilating the Caeliar technology, and despite Picard's opposition, Hernandez and the Starfleet officers put the plan into action. Using a soliton impulse, the Caeliar are contacted, who then arrive from Neu-Erigol with the city ship Axion in the Azure Nebula within a very short time. The Caeliar release the captured Titan crewmembers. Caused by the Caeliar and with the information that they have particle 010, all Borg ships stop their flight to Earth when they are only a few seconds away from it and set course for the Azure Nebula.

Hernandez uses her thoughts to steer the figure of the Caeliar in such a way that they obliterate the collective consciousness of the Borg drones. Millions of Borg drones across the galaxy are losing their slave-like status and are now free. Axion shines in a bright light, while all Borg cubes implode at the instigation of the shape. The Borg no longer exist. Picard and Seven of Nine lose their spiritual connection with the Borg. Hernandez advertises to the Caeliar with integrating the liberated Borg drones into the figure, also to ensure the continued existence of the Caeliar species. Hernandez now sees himself completely as one of the Caeliar.

While Martok learns on Qo'noS that over 70 million Klingons have died there alone, Bacco gives a speech on Earth addressed to the Federation Society. In it, she puts the number of Federation, Klingon and Romulan deaths caused by the Borg invasion at 63 billion and the decimation that Starfleet suffered at 40 percent. The spaceship Columbia is towed to the Utopia Planitia fleet yard for repairs.

characters

Unless otherwise stated, the figures are people.

  • Crew members of the Columbia NX-02 spaceship:
    • Captain Erika Hernandez - Commander
    • Cdr. Veronica Fletcher - First Officer
    • Lt. Cdr. Kalil El-Rashad - Science Officer and Second Officer
    • Lt. Karl Graylock - chief engineer
    • Lt. Johanna Metzger - Chief Medical Officer
    • Lt. Kiona Thayer - weapons officer
    • Ensign Sidra Valerian - communications officer
  • MACO members on the Columbia NX-02 spaceship:
    • Major Stephen Foyle - Commandant
    • Lt. Vincenzo Yacavino - Deputy Commandant
    • Sg.Gage Pembleton
  • Crew members of the spaceship Enterprise-E: → main article
  • Crew members of the Titan spaceship: → main article
  • Crew members of the spaceship Aventine:
    • Captain Ezri Dax - Commander, Species: Trill
    • Cdr. Sam Bowers - First Officer
    • Lt. Cdr. Gruhn Helkara - Science Officer and Second Officer, Species: Zakdorn
    • Lt. Lonnoc Kedair: Chief of Security, Species: Takarans
    • Lt. Simon Tarses: Chief Medical Officer, Species: Human and Romulans
    • Lt. Mikaela Leishman: Chief Engineer
  • Other figures:
    • Inyx - chief scientist of the Caeliar
    • Edrin - chief architect of the Caeliar
    • Nanietta Bacco - President of the Federation
    • Esperanza Piñiero - Chief of Staff of Nanietta Bacco
    • Elim Garak - Cardassian Ambassador
    • Martok - Klingon Chancellor

publication

The three novels were published in English by Pocket Books for the first time in September, October and November 2008. The anthology with all three novels was published by the publisher in March 2012. The volumes were published both in print and as an e-book.

The German-language first publication of the single novels took place between June and October 2010 by the Cross Cult publishing house . The translator into German was Stephanie Pannen . In June 2014 the publisher published an anthology with all three novels with the subtitle Complete Edition ; Another anthology followed in September 2016 as an anniversary edition, limited to 999 copies. In addition to the print edition, the novels were also published as e-books and - at least at Audible - as audio books spoken by Lutz Riedel .

See also

literature

Web links