Contents 1 War 2 PADD 3 Continuity 4 Sailing ship irregularities

WarEdit

This book claims that the United Federation of Planets didn't have a war from 2160 to 2294. Is this supported anywhere else? – AT2Howell 01:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the source and what you count as war (for instance, FASA had the Four Years War, but other sources don't recognize it. There was that business in the 2260's, but the Organians stopped it before anything more than a few skirmishes. But over "70 years of hostility" with the Klingons, there were a lot of skirmishes, some rating the name "Battle of".) But it does agree with Carol Marcus' statement that Starfleet had kept the peace of a hundred years.--Emperorkalan 20:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The Federation explicitly went to war with the Klingons in Errand of Mercy. --Columbia clipper 22:25, July 31, 2010 (UTC)

PADDEdit

What does PADD stand for? Personal Access Data Device, maybe? Anybody? Someone has to know. – AT2Howell 20:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Personal Access Display Device--Emperorkalan 20:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

ContinuityEdit

Just to note, The Fearful Summons doesn't seem to mesh well with other books set in roughly the same period (having people drop out of starfleet, etc.), so it may qualify as its own continuity (a la the Crucible books)--Emperorkalan 20:55, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the problems early on. Trouble is, this author helped pen Star Trek 6. Also, this book has been around since 1995, and written as a sequel to that film. While easy to write off as a tangent storyline, later works should have based off of this work, not created their own universe. – AT2Howell 21:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, in that film the story credits go to Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, & Mark Rosenthal, with Nicholas Meyer and Flinn polishing it into a screenplay, and a look at his other credits appears to be entirely unconnected with Trek, and it's one of the novels that dropped off into oblivion. So no matter what other writers "should" have done, the fact is that it's this one that hangs all by itself in left field. So basically, so what who the author was and what he wrote it as. Joe Haldeman is a better science fiction writer than Diane Carey or Bill Shatner but their books ignore the snippet he had about Kirk's father in "World Without End".

As the outlier, where Summons can't mesh it's the candidate for alternate continuity.--Emperorkalan 21:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

If only there had been a wiki back in 1995. So sad. – AT2Howell 21:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

This book would still suck and deserve to be contradicted even if a wiki had existed. 72.0.169.5 05:17, October 11, 2010 (UTC)

Sailing ship irregularitiesEdit

Describing a model he's building, Kirk says:

"This is the original Enterprise, the ship my first command was named after. It's a sailing ship, built during the nineteenth century for trading and sailing the Atlantic ocean. It predates man's ability to fly. I'm building a fairly exact model. Then maybe I'll take it out to the Bay and try it out."

Unfortunately, no such ship existed historically. 19th Century Enterprises and Enterprizes were almost exclusively military. Only one was both sail-powered and in private hands, but it sailed out of Tasmania, in the Pacific (a replica sits in Melbourne today). Furthermore, Star Trek: Enterprise seems to suggest that the name may go as far back as the real-life namesake of English-language Enterprises, the HMS Enterprise (originally L'Entreprise) captured from France in 1705.

It's possible that Kirk knows less of history thank he thinks he does. Earlier in the novel, he says:

"Back in the nineteenth century, when sailing ships actually floated on the water to cross oceans and seas, if they had capsized or were crippled for any reason, they broadcast an SOS as an immediate request for help."

Wirelesses were not installed aboard ships until the last years of that century, after sail propulsion had been phased out. --Columbia clipper 22:25, July 31, 2010 (UTC)