Dayton Ward’s novel To Defy Fate in review
Events in the novel To Defy Fate by Dayton Ward take place shortly after events in the season finale of Star Trek: Picard – “The Last Generation” – and depict the immediate aftermath of Frontier Day, in which many Starfleet officers were killed after a joint attack by the Borg and a group of rogue Changelings. The novel also continues a long-standing tradition, in non-canon literature, of referring to Gary Seven and his fellow time-travelling agents from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Assignment: Earth” as the “Aegis”. The book brings them back, together with the Travelers from Star Trek: The Next Generation. How does the fallout of what happened on Frontier Day connect these two groups?
Log Entry
Opening with the departure of Wesley Crusher to join the Travelers, the story gets going by reintroducing the reader to Raffi Musiker and Seven of Nine in the year 2401, the latter having just been promoted to captain of the USS Titan-A. Her first act as captain is to oversee the refit of her ship.
During the refit, both Seven and Raffi are briefly pulled into the past, where Captain Liam Shaw and Lieutenant T’Veen are both still alive, serving aboard the Titan-A. Whereas Raffi regains consciousness at a medical facility on Jupiter supervised by Doctor Beverly Crusher – after three days in a coma – Seven remains comatose, with no explanation as to why.
Picard, Crusher and Raffi meet Wesley Crusher at the station on Jupiter. He shows them a device he calls the Lattice, which he uses to keep an eye on temporal incursions.
Meanwhile, Guinan has disappeared while playing darts at her Ten Forward Bar in 2401’s Los Angeles. She finds herself in a void along with Kovic (who was last seen in Star Trek: Discovery).
The story then shifts over numerous alternate timelines, including one set five years after the events of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “In the Pale Moonlight”. There, Starfleet is at war with the Romulans, since Captain Benjamin Sisko’s deleted personal log has been sent by a mysterious adversary to both the Romulans and Starfleet. As the Crusher pair try to stop this by restoring the timeline, Picard and Aegis agent Mestral join Guinan and Kovic in their prison void.
In an alternate 2401, Raffi Musiker and Kore Soong enlist the help of that timeline’s Seven of Nine to track a rogue Aegis agent. Named Likara, she’s a Romulan who lost her husband and son in the Romulan supernova of 2387.
Eventually, Picard, Guinan, Mestral and Kovic are freed from their prison. Kovic is returned to his own time.
The pursuit of Likara continues over three temporal incursions. Picard and Mestral are sent to the Defiant during the battle with the Borg that opens the movie First Contact; Raffi, Kore and Seven are sent to a Borg cube during the Battle of Wolf 359; and the Crushers are sent back to Captain Sisko’s quarters while he’s recording his personal log from “In the Pale Moonlight”.
The teams manage to apprehend Likara but Kore and Raffi are forced to leave the alternate Seven of Nine to be assimilated by the Borg. Likara wakes in a holding cell but is freed by the Metrons, who take her with them. Seven of Nine wakes from her coma to find Raffi beside her. Picard, Wesley, Beverly, Guinan and Mestral relax at the Los Angeles Ten Forward bar, with Kovic making an appearance as a surprise guest.
Wesley takes the captain’s shuttle, Calypso, from the reconstructed USS Enterprise-D and ferries Picard back in time to witness the Romulan supernova. The Metrons have taken Likara back to the point her family died, Wesley informing Picard that Likara’s family gave up their seats on the evacuation transports for others. Presumably, Likara has died with her family.
Status Report
To Defy Fate isn’t a novel for a casual reader to dip into. It helps to be familiar with everything from TOS to Discovery.
Following the Frontier Day attack, To Defy Fate looks at a Federation rebuilding after the loss of so many experienced Starfleet officers. This gap leaves Starfleet with no option but to promote less experienced personnel into senior posts. This, however, is not the main crux of the story.
In this lore-steeped novel, Dayton Ward asks a much bigger question: who has the jurisdiction to police time itself? After all, if everyone could manipulate time for their own selfish ends, they might be tempted to try doing that exact thing. This is the dilemma faced by Wesley Crusher when an unknown adversary starts causing chaos through the various different timelines.
Time travel is an integral part of the book’s plot and isn’t used as a quick fix. Instead – in line with some of Dayton Ward’s many previous novels – Wesley Crusher and his colleagues from Aegis, namely Kore Soong and Mestral (from Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard and the Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Carbon Creek” respectively), have to work hard to resolve the crisis without further disrupting the timelines. As a result, the use of time travel to move this story forward earns its place in the novel.
When it becomes clear that the culprit is a former Aegis agent, this raises the question of jurisdiction: do the Travelers and Aegis have the right to police time? If they do, then if one of their own is involved, this raises a further question of conflict of interest. Dayton Ward solves this by allowing the Metrons to deal with the situation. By using the Metrons to decide the fate of the rogue Aegis agent, the potential conflict of interest is negated and results in a satisfying novel which starts slowly and escalates toward its conclusion without confusing the reader over the timelines and continuity involved. This novel is a must-read for every Dayton Ward fan out there and fills the gap left by the Season 3 finale of Star Trek: Picard beautifully.
