In today’s episode, when Captain Calhoun fits the profile of an ancient prophecy, he decides to lean into his celebrity status a bit. But when he disappears under mysterious circumstances, he leaves behind the horniest crew in the Beta Quadrant. Do Starfleet officers underrate yelling as a means of getting things done? Are Vulcans technically childfree? And what happens if you shut down a tricorder while it’s updating? All this and more in Martyr, the book that has some official pronoun updates for us.

Martyr
Author: Peter David
Pages: 282
Published: March 1998
Timeline: A few months after End Game, which is to say, in 2374, which in terms of concurrency with another, more familiar show, puts it somewhere in season 6 of Deep Space Nine, most likely between “The Magnificent Ferengi” (6×10) and “Waltz” (6×11)
Prerequisites: The previous four New Frontier novels, though events from them tend to be neatly summarized whenever they come up

It’s nice to be back with everyone’s favorite Ambassador-class ship, but first, we have a couple of flashbacks to set things up. In the first, on the planet Zondar, the prophet Ontear’s prognostications aggravate his acolyte Suti, who believes they are being used to justify prolonging the conflict between the planet’s two major factions, the Eenza and the Unglza. But Suti realizes the true magnitude of the burden Ontear bears when Ontear is carried away by a tornado and Suti literally takes his place. Suti realizes something about the specific spot Ontear stood in imparts grave knowledge of the future, including a vision of a messiah who will come from the stars and “will bear a scar, and … be a great leader.” Sounds familiar! It also says that the messiah “slain by the appointed one” will “unite [their] planet”. Maybe this doesn’t need to be so public after all…

Then we fast-forward to the more recent past, where a woman named Catrine wishes to continue her family line after her husband’s death. Xenexian tradition dictates that the chief grant that right by consummating with her, but since D’ndai is off negotiating peace with Danter, the responsibility falls to the virgin M’k’n’zy. It seems kind of sleazy at first, in that “local sex custom” wishful-thinking sort of way that only a man would dream up, but it actually ends up really tender and nice. Somewhat peculiarly, it ends up meaningfully connecting to something far less significant in the present than it seems like it’s initially going to, yet also providing a solid bedrock for a broader theme.

It takes a while to get to the present day in this book, but once we do, we find that the dust of the inaugural four-part adventure has settled and the Excalibur crew finally has a small amount of time to get down to what they do best: being insatiably horny. Doctor Selar is still wracked by the throes of pon farr, and with Chief Engineer Burgoyne seemingly off the table as a prospective consummator, she asks Captain Calhoun to quench her Vulcan urges the next time they flare up. Much to her chagrin, however, several passersby hear about her situation thanks to an engineering snafu that causes doors to randomly open. Wacky! But he might have to take a rain check: the Zondarians are extremely interested in meeting Calhoun (naturally, what with the prophecy and all). Calhoun rather relishes his role in their prophecy and chooses to play it to the hilt, which includes the never-great idea of staying the night planetside. Sure enough, he vanishes during his sleep, setting Shelby off on a desperate search-and-rescue.

Elsewhere, a religious sect called the Redeemers are losing their grip on their constituent worlds. Their Overlord thinks the giant flaming bird portends the return of their greatest deity, Xant, but the general populace sees it as a sign of liberation from the Redeemers. It can’t possibly be their oppressive theocratic regime that polls at a negative-infinity percent popularity rating, so obviously there’s only one solution: eliminate the competition. Meanwhile, most of the Zondarian public only knows an abridged version of the aforementioned savior narrative, but Ramed, the Eenza delegate who met with Calhoun, is revealed to possess the unexpurgated writings of Ontear, secretly passed down through time to various trusted hands until they ended up with him. He fully grasps the terrible import of what he must do—but will he be able to stand on business when the time comes, or will his feet fall out from under him?

You’d think a thing like Star Trek would be at odds with religion more often than not, but Martyr finds the topic once again handled with an impressive amount of nuance. For its theme, Martyr offers the argument that our lives are better spent celebrating what we have than waiting for death. This is part of what confused me about the inclusion of the Catrine flashback. At first, it seemed like it was providing a bridge to the idea of Calhoun bracing himself to do what he must in the present day (i.e., have sex in the name of duty). But it turns out to be the reason Catrine convinces him to go through with it that’s ultimately more important. She persuades him that, having seen so much death at such a young age, it might restore the cosmic balance a little to help add a life to the world, which I found unexpectedly touching.

Along with philosophies espoused by various other characters (particularly Burgoyne), I think the story is excellent in its subtle but clear condemnation of one of the very worst aspects of evangelicalism, which is that it is so enamored with the ultimate fate promised by eschatology that it actively invests in speeding up the arrival of supposed end-times events instead of making the current world a better place. Instead of celebrating the tentative peace the arrival of a savior is causing the Zondarians to lean into, Ramed is only consumed with fulfilling a prophecy. We see something similar today with America pouring obscene amounts of financial support into Israel while callously ignoring the state of their own turf.1 Politicians on all sides will blithely go forward with any number of war crimes if it means seeing the Rapture happen in their lifetimes. It’s sad that the state of affairs was as relevant 25 years ago as it is now.

In lighter news, the Excalibur crew continues to be one of the more electrifying ensembles in the franchise, even as they’re restricted exclusively to the domain of text. One thing that sets them apart from Star Trek in a way I find true to reality is that they turn up the volume more quickly than other crews. They seem more human. Sometimes Star Trek can get so caught up in living up to incredibly lofty ideals that it forgets that people behave imperfectly and solve problems in messy ways. Of course, it’s more validating to see in fiction than in reality. It’s not really ever a good idea to just scream people into submission, but take it from someone who dealt with some significant anger issues in the early 2010s: it’s hard to deny yourself the instant dopamine hit to your ego that hulking out gives you. Plus, it sure does cut down on the amount of time you have to spend writing dialogue when you can just have everyone be silenced by someone’s sudden OOC fit of rage.

It’s also nice that the pon farr arc finally wraps up to everyone’s satisfaction (double entendre intended); in my opinion, Peter David’s sex stuff does generally get old fairly quickly, even when it’s executed tastefully and effectively like it is here. I doubt it signals the end of the relationship between Selar and Burgoyne; if anything, in a series as tightly plotted and ongoing as New Frontier, the ramifications are just beginning. Some things are getting slyly set up for later here, however, such as a mysterious energy drain on the engines at low warp factors that Burgoyne suspects could be the work of some sentient being, and Lefler clearly developing the hots for Si Cwan while volunteering as his Federation liaison. The end of the book also gives a sneak peek at what’s coming up next for Lefler. She hasn’t seen much time in the limelight so far, so it’ll be interesting to see the focus shift to her come Fire on High.

I’m starting to really enjoy the New Frontier books. With other crews, you kind of know what to expect from seeing how they behave on the shows, but there’s a very strong and refreshing wild-card element to the Excalibur bunch. For those who thought Deep Space Nine wasn’t “your daddy’s Star Trek“, New Frontier sees that wager and raises it a healthy stack of chips. I’m incredibly thankful it hasn’t veered into edgelord territory yet; perhaps it’s safe to say this is where David’s writing started maturing? I’ve always been more back-and-forth on David than other fans, but I’m finally starting to see why the love for him is so effusive.

Ten Forward Toast

Man, did I feel bad for Saulcram, the main person on Alpha Carinae who stands up to the theo-fash iron fist of the High Priest. He actually succeeds in violently deposing the High Priest and instigating a revolution, only for the priest’s death to trigger a failsafe that releases a dormant virus from his body, which eradicates the entire population of the planet within 72 hours (and for extra gratuitous heartstring-tugging, kills a four-year-old girl last). It feels like getting the bad ending in a game, but for doing the right thing. Huge bummer!

MVP & LVP

  • For superficial purposes, the obvious MVP of this story is Burgoyne. Anyone who can bed down multiple crew members and also go toe-to-toe with a mugato and live to talk about it is definitely a force to be reckoned with. However, I think the character that will stay with me the longest is Catrine. What starts off as seemingly a pervy excuse to contrive a character into getting some government-sanctioned strange turns into something far more beautiful than it probably has any right to be, and her and M’k’n’zy’s short time together will probably be what I think of first when I think of this book in the future.
  • I think the character with the least to contribute in this one is probably Lieutenant Lefler, though it’s a photo finish between her and McHenry. This should change in the next book, however. I admit I’m not too keen on the nascent attraction to Si Cwan—this isn’t a Shakespearean comedy, not everyone needs to be paired off2—but New Frontier‘s various intimate relationships have been excecuted much better than I would have expected so far, so I’ll settle for remaining cautiously optimistic.

Stray Bits

  • Burgoyne’s pronoun situation gets a little more modernized here, with hir replacing hish. It’s dressed up as a pronouncement handed down by the Hermat language council, but I think the new one instantly ages better; I’ve heard people in real life go by hir. It’s interesting how the person with the most to say about it is Burgoyne hirself; everyone else just rolls with it and picks the new words up immediately and without complaint (as, you know, they should). I still think David’s perception of hir intersex nature is pretty muddled, but considering it was 1998, it’s a minor miracle the character didn’t immediately go completely sideways.
  • Selar makes a case for the childfree lifestyle: “…it could be easily argued that there is no logical reason to have children. Ever. They are burdensome, they are limiting, they habitually expel bodily fluids out of a variety of orifices at high velocity, and they are extremely time consuming [sic].” Since that goes against the idea of avoiding extinction, however, Vulcans decided to do away with getting logic tangled up in childbearing altogether. I have to confess I find it a little strange that she feels that way after her experience on the Enterprise with the Andorian orphan, but you simply couldn’t expect that kind of cross-pollination across extra-canonical works by different authors in those times. (pp. 55, 56)
  • Transporter operator Polly Watson advises Doctor Selar, p. 183: “Keep your tricorder on in order to ensure proper information retrieval.” Nearly 300 years in the future, and you still have to wait for this after your automatic LCARS update:
  • Commander Shelby dispenses some fantastic advice late in the book: “When dealing with fanatics, count on their fanaticism.” (p. 268)
  • The introduction of the mugato security officer, Janos, was absolutely delightful. David doesn’t get too deep into what his deal is, though it’s obvious there has to be some genetic tampering going on there, since they’re essentially wild animals. I hope we get to see more of that guy in future stories. It was also pretty fun to learn that he’s named after the actor who played the first mugato in 1968, Janos Prohaska.

Final Assessment

Excellent. Now that we’ve settled in and don’t have to bother with introductions anymore, David can really start unlocking the potential of these characters. Although they’re spending on a lot of that potential right now on getting each other under the sheets, it’s still very well done, and the New Frontier crew feels the most human of all the Star Trek ensembles in an eminently relatable way. At this point, my body is fully ready to go on whatever adventure with these rascals Peter David wants to take me on.

NEXT TIME: Data deals with dozens of dastardly Deceptions