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This week I decided to review Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of
The Federation: Patterns of Interference by Christopher
L. Bennett.
The story begins shortly after the prior book. After the chain of
events that led to the collapse of the Partnership of Civilizations was started
by the Federation trying to help them without understanding their situation, Admiral Jonathan Archer is trying to set up a non-interference directive in the
hopes of preventing any future such disasters. But he faces strong opposition
from his friend Thy'lek Shran, who views such a directive as an indictment of
one of his proteges killed at the forefront of the crisis, and others who fear
such a directive will lead to Starfleet officers doing nothing while less
advanced civilizations are destroyed by forces beyond their control--such as
natural disasters.
While Archer doesn’t consider
the latter scenario likely, he must also struggle with his dedication to his
cause after realizing that both the Orion Syndicate and Section 31 hope for the
directive to become reality as well as the news that his beloved dog Porthos is
dying.
Meanwhile, Sauria has been conquered by Emperor Maltuvis, who
received economic aid from the Federation in exchange for valuable resources found
in his nation before launching his plot to seize control of his world, and is
now receiving covert aid from the Orion Syndicate. Starfleet sends a team to
assist resistance forces opposing him but the Orions plan to arrange a disaster
involving the aid team to encourage isolationism within the Federation. Charles
Tucker III hopes to use the Saurian situation in his quest to destroy Section
31 by planting evidence showing that the organization’s apparent leader is
working with the Orion Syndicate. But he must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice
to end Section 31 and face the possibility that he is becoming too much like
his enemy.
There is also a plot involving the planet Birnam where the Earth Cargo Ship Verne has discovered
that some of the planet’s mobile plant life contain compounds that would be of
great pharmaceutical value. But there is some evidence that the plants in
question might be sentient and the only way to harvest the compounds is to kill
the plants. After the USS Endeavour arrives to investigate the possibility that
the plants are intelligent, tensions quickly heat between the Starfleet crew and
the members of Verne’s crew who believe the plants aren’t intelligent and that
the tests are taking too long, thus delaying pharmaceutical deals.
I give this book 9 out of 10. It has a nice variety of
scenes but there is very little action in it. Even the Sauria plot only has a couple
of short action scenes. Also I feel it suffers from the fact that the ultimate
resolution of most of the plots has been established elsewhere. Finally, the Birnam
plot feels completely disconnected from the Non-Interference Directive and
Sauria plots.
