Star Trek: The Destiny Era: Hearts and Minds

2031-67 / late 2386
Way back in installments #1 and 4 of this chronological marathon, I read two original series novels, From History's Shadow and Elusive Salvation, because their events would be referenced in a Destiny-era book. Over seven years later, that connection finally pays off with Hearts and Minds, which provides a third and final installment to Dayton Ward's "secret history" sequence of novels about the Aegis and the U.S. security apparatus. Was it all worth it? Well, I may have appreciated the connections more had I read the books closer together, like they were released. That, I suppose, is the downside of reading in chronological order.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hearts and Minds
by Dayton Ward

Published: 2017
Acquired and read: December 2024

Like those original series novels, we have two parallel plotlines here. In one, an alien spaceship crashes on Earth in the early twenty-first century; it and its pilot are recovered by I-31, a secretive branch of the U.S. military. In the other, the Enterprise-E continues its exploration of the Odyssean Pass, coming upon an early war civilization... about which Commander Taurik apparently knows a devastating secret.

What I can say about this book is that it's basically fine. I found the twenty-first century plot more engaging than some of the ones in previous "From History's Shadow" books, probably because it's more focused, just revolving around a couple characters and one inciting incident, instead of trying to work in a whole bunch of stuff. That said, there's still the occasional clunky passage where characters think about all the stuff that happened in their plotline since the last time we checked in on them, as opposed to actually seeing this stuff happen.

The future plotline is also stronger than in some of those earlier books, revolving around the Enterprise coming to this planet that has gone through a devastating war, and slowly uncovering the role humanity might have played in it. Like a lot of Ward novels, I'm starting to realize it would play well as a Star Trek Adventures episode, with an away team captured, some technical challenges and puzzles, an escape attempt or two, and a solution based around diplomacy and the extension of trust. I liked this—enough that I wish there had been a bit more to it. I felt like it had room for some more complications if the Enterprise had got to the planet faster, where the real meat of the story resides.

The two storylines don't just intersect from a plot perspective, but also from a thematic one; both are about extending trust to the "other" and foregoing violence even when it seems like the only option.

On the other hand, there's this subplot about Taurik that doesn't really go anywhere. When the Enterprise returned to Federation space for the events of the Prey trilogy, Taurik was debriefed by the Department of Temporal Investigations about a discovery he made regarding future history in Armageddon's Arrow. At that time, the DTI and Admiral Akaar apparently also fill him in on what is known about the Eizand, forbidding him to tell anyone else. Once Akaar and Taurik reveal this to Picard, this creates tension. I thought this was well done...

... but by the novel's end, it's not clear at all 1) why Taurik got this briefing, or 2) why this information had to be kept from Picard. Like, in the novel's final scene, clearly the place it should be explained, it's all just shrugged aside. What point was there in keeping this information from Picard and undermining his command authority? What was Taurik actually expected to do? It's bizarre, like the book forgot about an idea it set up at the beginning in favor of dealing with the repercussions of Section 31: Control.

So overall, it reads fine and quick, but I think with some decent tweaks, it could have been even better.

Continuity Notes:

• The Historian's Note says this takes place before Section 31: Control, but is best read after it; it's probably more accurate to say the two books overlap, with the final 2386 scene here occurring after the main events of Control.
• The Ares IV mission from Voyager's "One Small Step" is fit into Ward's future history. I read this book only a few weeks after Strange New Worlds: Asylum, where the Ares IV mission also plays a role... and in the acknowledgements, writer Una McCormack thanked Dayton Ward for drawing her attention to it. I guess he's got a thing!
• I did like getting to hear about Roberta Lincoln one last time; the book apparently ties into a Strange New Worlds story about 9/11 that I haven't read.
• We learn that in the 2020s, humanity returns to the Moon, but it's an ECON mission that does it. (The ECON is lead by China and India, and also includes Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, and Vietnam.)
• Gary Seven mentions the Optimum Movement as among the organizations threatening humanity's integration into interstellar society; this is a reference to the novel Federation, where its posited as the organization Colonel Green from "The Savage Curtain" and the twenty-first-century soldiers from "Encounter at Farpoint" belonged to.

Other Notes:

• The twenty-first century plotline has a doctor named April Hebert; this character name would also be used (I presume by Ward) for the commodore commanding Narenda Station in the STA scenarios about the Shackleton Expanse. (I used the character in my own STA campaign, but changed her into a man named August Hebert.)
• Picard is a The War of the Worlds fan. I approve.

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Next Generation: Available Light by Dayton Ward