In today’s episode, the Bajorans get to run the station for two months, and Kai Winn has a lot of changes in mind. Meanwhile, over in the Gamma Quadrant, the effort to whip a planet getting steamrolled by the Cardassians into shape is hamstrung by their reliance on their toys. Is Kai Winn secretly an awesome boss? Why do some authors fixate so much on Odo’s shapeshifting? And did we all already forget about what just happened to Quark? All this and more in The Conquered, the first book in the trilogy that doesn’t have the titles on the cover for some reason?
The Conquered
Author: Daffyd ab Hugh
Pages: 233
Published: February 1999
Prerequisites: General knowledge of events, characters, and lore up through roughly season 4
Since things with the Cardassians appear to be comparatively chill at the moment, the Federation decides it’s an okay time to move forward with an experiment to let the Bajoran government run Deep Space Nine on a 60-day trial basis without breathing down their necks about it the whole time. Kira gets excited because she thinks it means she’s going to get to spend two months running the place with her boy toy Shakaar—so she’s ultra-mega-dis-o-pointed when Kai Winn shows up for the head honcho gig, renames the place Emissary’s Sanctuary, fires/sends away anyone she deems not religious or reverent enough, and announces plans to take it back to the old ways.
Conveniently (or perhaps not), the turnover happens right as Sisko gets wind of some rogue Cardassians invading a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. Scans show Cardassians, some race called the Drek’la that they’re teaming up with, and about 11 million natives. The scans also show that there’s latinum and dilithium in their soil, plus a ton of ancient tech (presumed to have been left lying around by some mystery race that bounced a long time ago) that the natives rely on but don’t understand. The Defiant crew is able to make a swift positive impression by saving a girl trapped in a well with nothing more than rope and wood, or as the natives call it, “new tech”.
The Tiffnakis are in a lot of trouble. They personally reminded me of no one so much as the Pakleds, though guileless might be a more accurate word in this case than stupid. They are thoroughly incapable of solving problems without their technology, and they don’t really have anything resembling a structured society, so when Cardassians come through and cut power to their tools, they pretty much immediately roll over and get decimated. Not only does Sisko have to get the Tiffnakis into fighting shape, he’s got other things to deal with as well, like figuring out whether they’re dealing with officially sanctioned Cardassians or fugitives and trying to keep Quark from leaving the planet with pockets full of latinum dirt.
The Conquered is the first of a trilogy we’ll be covering straight through, though depending on your point of view (which happens to be mine), it can also be seen as the first third of a roughly 700-page novel. If that’s the interpretation you choose to roll with, then this introduction is more than a little shaky. Mainly, the book has a skewed perception of what its most interesting plot threads and arcs are. The overwhelming amount of time is spent on the Defiant’s mission to Sierra Bravo 112-II, marching the Tiffnakis around like a scout troop and facepalming when they produce yet another piece of tech that allows them to cheese the task Sisko asks them to perform. But it’s not very pleasant to watch the characters suffer and complain about these annoying simpletons. The deeper into the book you get, the more you think the action has to get back to Deep Space Nine (or rather, Emissary’s Sanctuary) at some point, but it almost never does. Kai Winn played a role in the resistance that’s teased here and there—and I think will get explored more in the next book, if the ending of this one is any indication—but I thought we’d be getting more of that overall than we have so far, which stinks, because it’s clear it’s a different and more refreshing angle from the vigilantism we typically associate with the Bajoran resistance.
Despite taking up the bulk of the text, the Tiffnaki arc also has some weird pacing issues. After a whole book of goofing around and not understanding why it’s not a good idea for them to depend so heavily on their technology, they’re suddenly bitter, grizzled, and ready to fight by the end, and it never felt as though we got to fully witness that shift in attitude. If we’re going to spend all our time on them, it’d at least be nice to feel like there was a more natural progression in their maturation.
I’m hoping we also get more information about the people it’s presumed vacated the planet a long time ago and left all their goodies behind. There’s nothing wrong with a little mystery, of course, and not every detail has to have a pat explanation by the end, but it’s ripe for exploration. Imagining that, basically, the Time Lords vacated Gallifrey and left all the sonic screwdrivers lying around (and no instruction manuals) for the lumpenproletariat to figure out is a meaty premise, evoking shades of the Iconians leaving behind the Guardian of Forever. I understand that it’s a minor concern and will probably be addressed quickly if at all, but it would be fun to get some more insight into that as the trilogy progresses.
There are other things as well that made this kind of an odd read. For one thing, there’s way too much hemming and hawing about the Prime Directive, considering the Tiffnakis’ development was messed up long before any Alpha Quadranters arrived by the ancient advanced tech they were left with. But a lot of its ineffectiveness centers, for me, around Odo and ab Hugh’s specific understanding of his shapeshifting capabilities. It’s always a little weird when authors hyperfixate on Odo flying or using his hands as a sledgehammer or some other weird thing.1 To me, Odo’s shape-changing abilities are kind of incidental to his concerns about his self-identity and where he fits in socially. When the series was newer, it would have been a more understandable fascination, but it was nearly wrapped by the time these books were published. I didn’t enjoy Odo very much in this book for other reasons as well (more on that below), but this in particular stood out to me.
While I didn’t get everything I wanted out of this, it is just the first installment out of three. There’s still time for the trilogy to address things that pique more of my interest. I also think the Tiffnakis’ reliance on the technology strewn about the planet, to the point that they consider solutions made out of raw materials genuinely impressive, could potentially have some incisive things to say about those who can’t wean themselves off the AI teat. I will confess I don’t have high hopes based on what we’ve been given so far, but there’s certainly some good to be mined from some of these premises, whether or not ab Hugh manages to pull it off in the end.
MVP & LVP
- My MVP for this one is, believe it or not, Kai Winn. Just like Kira, you think she’s just being self-serving when she shows up to run the station, but then she does a decent enough job running it day to day, and even stays cool as a cucumber even while a group of mystery assailant tries to infiltrate the shields. You know from the prologue that she played a role in the resistance just like everyone else, albeit in a different setting requiring a different approach. But I can’t lie: I’m itching to know more about that past, even if she is understandably reticent to dwell on it.
- Odo is the kind of LVP I envisioned way back when I made up this feature in the review for Bloodthirst: a burden who makes negative contributions to the effort. Here, his repartee with Quark isn’t as snappy as you’d hope for from the duo, to the point where you start thinking less of him for not being able to resist engaging, and he oversleeps while regenerating at one point. Heck, even Quark comes up with the plan that’s going to drive the Gamma Quadrant action in the next book, and that’s no small W. Combined with ab Hugh’s (in my opinion) facile understanding of the utility and importance of Odo’s shapeshifting capabilities, I just didn’t enjoy the character a whole lot in this book.
Stray Bits
- Kira’s authorization code is given here as Bravo-Alpha-Bravo-Echo. Kinda skeevy, but turnabout is fair play, at least; Sisko’s is apparently Hugo-Uniform-November-Kilo. (88, 89)
- Quark gets really excited about the prospect of a pocket replicator making him rich—but doesn’t all the value of gold-pressed latinum come from the fact that it can’t be replicated? Just one of those little things that tells you you’re not dealing with the keenest eye for Trek detail. (156)
First Assessment
Bad. Future installments may round this one out, but so far, we’re spending time in all the wrong places. Watching Kai Winn run the station efficiently despite Kira’s misgivings is a lot more interesting than watching the rest of the crew try to whip some dollar-store Pakleds into fightin’ shape, and it shows a general lack of depth in thoughtfulness specifically through its understanding of what Odo’s shapeshifting entails. It’s probably fair to consider the Sierra Bravo 112-II action the A-plot since the most time is spent on it, but I hope the next two books explore some of the more interesting things that were hinted at here.
NEXT TIME: The conquered become The Courageous
