Name: The Entropy Effect
Author: Vonda N. McIntyre
Publication Date: 6/1981
Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #2)
Page Number: 224
Historian’s Note:
This book takes place prior to the events of The Infinite Vulcan
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander
Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy
AKA “Bones” Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
Lieutenant Commander Mandala Flynn Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Lieutenant Bernardi
al Auriga Lieutenant Maximo Alisaunder
Arrunja Lieutenant Snnanagfashtalli Lieutenant Neon Nurse Christine Chapel Ensign Pavel Chekov Ensign Jenniver
Aristeides Chief Petty Officer Beatrice Smith Yeoman First Class Janice Rand Captain Hunter Lieutenant Ilya Nikolaievich Ian Braithwaite Dr. Georges Mordreaux Mree Perim Defense Attorney Lee
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS
Aerfen registration unknown., Aerfen unnamed shuttlecraft
Planets: Aleph Prime (an asteroid)
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure
begins with the Enterprise investigating a strange singularity that has
appeared out of nowhere. This process is time-consuming and stressful for both
the crew’s minds and the ship’s systems.
The shields must be on all the time, the Enterprise can’t stop
for some shore leave at some planet they must continue. Spock has been running at all hours, using a
special Vulcan technique that prevents him from sleeping, personally handles
the study. Spock discovers something
horrible: the universe only has a century of life left to it. Such an extraordinary and troublesome find
creates extra incentive for Spock to perform the necessary task of repeating
the experiment to see if he can get the same results. However, before that can occur a priority
message is sent directly to Captain Kirk, and they must drop what they are
doing to answer it.
 |
| The universe maybe doomed |
A less universe shattering event,
the Enterprise has a new chief of security. Lt. Cmdr. Mandala Flynn was a transferee from
the border patrol and fit in with the crew right away. She was a huge improvement to the security
department, which frankly could always have used some improvement. Under her leadership there was higher moral
and list of accomplishments. She earned
Kirk’s respect when out right told him she was shooting for his job. She is even more to Lt. Sulu. The two of them share many interests and are
learning from each other. She teaches
him Judo while he teaches her fencing.
Their friendship is on the verge of turning into a romance. Sulu is also developing a new look, allowing
his hair to grow long and growing a mustache.
The Enterprise arrives at
the mining colony on Aleph Prime. Kirk
and Spock beam down to meet with the local prosecutor Ian Braithwaite. Braithwaite is excited to see them, a little
too excited to see Mr. Spock. Braithwaite seems to recognize Spock, thinking he saw
him earlier but that is impossible as Spock was on the Enterprise doing
experiments. Braithwaite explains that
he needs the Enterprise to transport a prisoner. This sends Kirk into a rage similar to when Under-Secretary
Nilz Baris used the emergency service to get the Enterprise to station
K-7 in order to guard some grain. The main difference between Baris and
Braithwaite is while the former was proud of his violation the latter denies
doing it. He has no idea who sent the
signal, but he would still like them to take the dangerous prisoner to the
rehabilitation colony. Braithwaite is
very concerned at getting this criminal off world as he already murdered the
judge and the defense attorney, and logically he is next.
Spock explains to Braithwaite in no
uncertain terms that Starfleet vessels do not transport civilian prisoners as a
matter of policy. However, Spock quickly
changes his tune when he learns the identity of the prisoner, he convinces Kirk
to accept the assignment. When the
prosecutor leaves Kirk then asks Spock what that was all about. Spock explains that the prisoner, Dr. Georges
Mordreaux, is a former teacher of his and one he
had great respect for. Spock had been
following his work ever since. The First Officer finds it impossible that his
former mentor is guilty of the crimes of which he has been convicted. These crimes are promising his test subjects
to send them back in time but murdering them instead and then the killing of
the magistrates on Aleph Prime.
 |
| Spock explaining things |
Since they are here Kirk takes the
time to look up an old flame: Captain Hunter of the USS Aerfen. The Aerfen is a ship in the boarder
control division of Starfleet. Her
squadron of ships defends the Federation/Klingon boarder. Like her ex-boyfriend Hunter is a legend in
her own right. Sulu greatly admires her
for saving a colony he was living in from a Klingon attack.
Flynn converts a VIP personal
quarters into a holding cell. To Kirk’s
annoyance, Braithwaite decides to join.
Insisting that in his role as prosecutor requires that he sees this to
the end. Braithwaite acts like an exited
kid to be aboard a starship. As he has
only been on solar flare ships. Spock
confronts Mordreaux. The old scientist
is confused, disoriented, and drugged up.
Spock lets him know he thinks he is innocent.
Kirk tells McCoy that Hunter has
once asked him to join her polygamous family setup. Kirk had refused but now he thinks he made a
mistake. Later, Hunter would come up in
discussion as Kirk was performing a career assessment for Sulu, at the
Lieutenant’s request. The two men agree
that Sulu’s career directory is headed for either no command or a small one. Sulu needs some different sets of experiences
in order to get himself to wear he wants to be.
Following his girlfriend Flynn’s advice, Sulu asks Kirk to recommend him
for Hunter’s Aerfen. Kirk sadly
agrees and Sulu is quickly transferred.
 |
| Sulu doubting his future with the Enterprise |
Scotty runs into Spock in the
transporter room, who makes some comments on the power. When Scotty makes his way to the bridge, he
sees Spock there talking with Kirk and Flynn.
Scotty demands to know how Spock got there. Spock points out he has been here all along,
which everyone else can confirm. Kirk
thinks Scotty is overworked and needs some rest. This annoys the engineer as he feels people
think he is crazy. As if on cue, a real
crazy person shows up. Dr. Mordreaux,
looking older and wearing a rehabilitation colony prisoner jumpsuit, appears on
the bridge with a firearm. He shoots
Captain Kirk in the chest and gets Flynn in the arm. Kirk is seriously wounded, and the bridge crew
are attending to him. Flynn chases after the assailant. While Kirk is bleeding
out on the floor, Spock helps him by performing a mind meld to make him
emotionally calm. It works but it allows
Kirk to evaluate the situation and realizes he is going to die. If he does die mind melded with Spock it will
severally damage Spock’s mental state.
Kirk grabs Spock’s hand and pulls it off his face breaking the mind
meld. He tells Spock to take care of his
ship. McCoy comes to the bridge to
stabilize Kirk and get him to sickbay.
 |
| he's a crazy guy with a gun! |
Flynn arrives at Mordreaux’s cell and
discovers he is still in it. More
importantly her team insists he never left.
She orders a ship wide search for the double and his weapon. She finds it hard to think and she realizes
what is wrong. It is not the loss of
blood that is hurting her, it is the bullet she was hit with was a
spiderweb. A type of weapon that that
choke the Human nervous system with organo-metallic fibers. If your hit with one and not killed by your
immediate injuries the spiderweb will eat up your brain. Flynn
calls to the bridge about her discovery and then dies. McCoy tries to save Kirk and does save his
body, but the spiderweb ate his brain. Spock convinces McCoy to take his body off
life support. Braithwaite overhears this
and completely misunderstands it.
McCoy, drunk and depressed,
approaches Spock and demands they go back in time to save Jim. McCoy argues that they have gone back in time
before to save a universe of strangers then they should be willing to go back
in time to save their friend. Spock
points out that what he is suggesting is not only dangerous but wrong. Spock counters that they only go into the
past to alter it if they are correcting an already tampered with timeline. (Spock is very nice not remine McCoy how the
timeline was tampered with in “The City on the Edge of Forever”) What has
happened is what has supposed and there is nothing he can do about it. Spock announces the deaths of Kirk and Flynn
to the whole crew over the ship’s intercom system. Later, Spock decides he is going to transfer
to be a science officer somewhere else.
He doesn’t want command of this ship and he doesn’t want to serve under
a third captain.
Spock goes to interview Mordreaux, who
is no longer drugged, he explained that he developed a method of time
travel. His supporters and financial
backers, who had also become his dear friends, were looking for a way to travel
to the past permanently. His friends all
had a burning desire to live in a different historical period, and he helped
them do that. He didn’t murder anyone,
he sent them to live in the past. (Although technically that would mean that
they are dead now.) When Spock pointed
out the dangers, his old mentor defended himself by saying he sent them so far
into the past that the chances of them altering history is almost
impossible. (That doesn’t make any sense
but more on that later.) Spock explained to Mordreaux what happened to Kirk and
what the “other him” looked like and they agreed that the murder was an insane
future version of Mordreaux. Mordreaux
points out that maybe they have already altered things by their
conversation. However, Spock notices his
memory hasn’t changed and Captain Kirk hasn’t suddenly woken up. Spock gets Mordreaux to help him build a time
travel device like the one the future Mordreaux possesses, but Spock is forced
to promise not to try and pull his mentor’s friends out of the past.
McCoy tries to apologize to Spock,
but Spock then insists McCoy was right.
This 180-degree turn is a little hard for McCoy to accept but Spock
explains that the timeline has already been messed with and it is their duty to
correct it. While they are planning this
Braithwaite is conducting his own investigation, he explains what he saw to Mr.
Scott. Scotty has a hard time believing
this however Braithwaite makes a case for his conspiracy and asks Scotty for
his assistance.
 |
| working to fix this |
Spock uses the device to go back in time. In the present, McCoy covers for Spock. He tells people that Spock, who was near
exhaustion, was medically ordered to rest and that Spock had placed himself,
meaning McCoy, as the new second-in-command.
This offended Mr. Scott who normally would be next in line, but McCoy
tells him it’s because he is needed for the overworked engines that are long
overdue for a Starbase tune up. Braithwaite also comes calling with his insane
assassination theories, even going so far as accusing the late Flynn of being
in on it. McCoy agrees to take him to
see Mordreaux but when they get to his cell McCoy has the Flynn loyal security
team arrest him and look him up.
In the past Spock’s rescue attempt
did not go as planned. First, Spock did
not expect the ill physical feeling the time travel caused. (His previous time travel experiences did not
have such problems.) He runs into Mr.
Scott, which became the start of Scotty’s problems. In addition, Mordreaux gets the jump on him,
even shooting him with his weapon. Fortunately
for Spock, the bullet only grazed him, not penetrated inside, protecting him
from the spiderweb. This, however,
delays Spock. He fails to save Captain
Kirk and has to watch him die again.
Spock returns to the present to report his failure. After talking to present Mordreaux again. Spock realizes he must go back even further
in time to prevent the damage.
Captain Hunter and Lt. Sulu return
to the Enterprise via shuttlecraft to investigate Captain Kirk’s death. Scotty frees Braithwaite and the four go to
confront Spock and McCoy. Now Spock has
to go back father in time than before.
So, First Officer and CMO have to work quickly as Hunter is not taking
“no” for an answer. Spock, now dressed
in civilian clothes, boards the transporter with the device as Hunter enters
the room, she orders him to stop but Spock proceeds anyway. Hunter didn’t stop him even though she could
have. While they are all questioning
McCoy, Braithwaite has an allergic reaction and needs to go to sickbay. McCoy tries to no avail to save him.
Spock now back on Aleph Prime, days
before he arrived, he ends up running into Braithwaite. The encounter is brief, but it explains why
the man thought he knew Spock. This
makes Spock wonder if he has failed here too.
Spock finds Mordreaux and subdues him only to discover he has found the
wrong one. This version is the oldest
one yet, who has now recovered from madness and had come back in time to stop
himself from diverting the Enterprise.
Now they are both too late.
This Mordreaux explains to Spock
that it was him sending his friends to live out their dream times that caused
the anomalies that will cause the universe’s premature death. In the original timeline it was Spock’s
discovery of this that led to his original arrest. He went back to divert the Enterprise
so he could make contact with Spock and hope he would understand. This led Captain Kirk to advocate for him to
be rehabilitated instead of being sent to a penial colony, it was during this
rehabilitation where he went mad. In his madness, he sought revenge against
everyone he blamed for his predicament including Captain Kirk. Now that he has recovered, he wants to make
right by preventing the incident by preventing the Enterprise from being
diverted restoring the original timeline.
Spock points out that is only a small part of the problem. The singularities that are being created by
the temporal anomalies must be stopped.
In order to truly prevent this tragedy from occurring, they must go back
and prevent the time travel experiment from ever occurring. Mordreaux
releases Spock from his earlier promise not to interfere with his friends’
trips to the past.
 |
| Their actions are causing a lot of suspicion |
The two go back to Mordreaux’s lab.
Mordreaux is surprised that his lab is such a mess and wonders if they
are on a new track as he always went peacefully when arrested. They decide Spock should be the one to go
because his Vulcan physiology gives him the ability to better deal with the
rigors of this form of time travel.
Spock travels back to the time
before Mordreaux’s friends were sent back.
They are a small group of people, who respond with Spock’s warning from
the future with as much enthusiasm as the Science Council of Krypton took to
Jor-El’s warning of the planet’s impending explosion. They immediately demand this time traveler,
who just appeared as they were about to do their own time traveling, to prove
what he is saying is true. Spock
attempts a computer simulation, but they deny its authenticity. That is when Mordreaux from a time period
after Spock had left, also appeared. He
warns of the horror they are about to create.
They all decide to give up on the dream, the older Mordreaux disappears,
and Spock returns to his own time.
 |
| Joe-El can understand predictiment |
Back on the Enterprise the madness has
all disappeared and everyone remembers what has happened as just a bad dream,
one they quickly find themselves forgetting.
Spock takes the longest, he also had a little trouble explaining his get
up that he wore for his mission that now never happened. He reports that the
singularity will soon dissipate and will be no threat. Kirk holds a meeting with Sulu where he tells
the helmsman how much he means to the ship.
He decides to increase his responsibilities and recommend him for a
field promotion to lieutenant commander.
Sulu stops all thoughts of a transfer and just focuses on his new
relationship with Flynn. The Science
community is shocked that Mordreaux didn’t publish his final paper.
Additional thoughts: This book holds some special
significance for me. It is the last
piece of Star Trek media to be produced prior to my existence. The Motion Picture was the last live action
that took place before my lifetime, this is just the last piece of pre-me Star
Trek period.
We have actually seen the death of
Captain Kirk a number of times by now.
The first was in “Amok Time” where Spock is tricked by McCoy to believe
that he killed him. Both Spock and the
audience are quite relieved at the end of the episode. Spock falsely kills the Captain again in “The Enterprise Incident.” This time Spock
was in on the gag to fool the Romulan Commander. Kirk dies again in “The Tholian Web.” This time the crew outright has a funeral and
Uhura is terrified when she sees Kirk’s ghost.
Fortunately, they pull him out of that alternate dimension. In the book “The Price of the Phoenix” Kirk
is killed at the very start and McCoy even does an autopsy to confirm it. The
villain Omne then offers a clone of Kirk to replace him. Later we learn the dead Kirk is also a clone
and the real one is still alive. It
seems we really need to see the crew react to Kirk’s death. It has never been done as well as this
story, however. It helps of course that
Kirk in this story actually dies, as opposed to just appearing to. The death will be undone by time travel, but
it is real none the less. Kirk’s death
is emotional and impactful. Kirk,
physically breaking the mind meld with Spock to prevent his mental collapse and
asking that they take care of his ship is beautifully written.
 |
| Kirk's ghost! |
Some minor things I didn’t
like. Sulu’s hairstyle and mustache,
what was the point of it? It doesn’t
serve any point in the story and it’s annoying because I forget half the time
and have to replay the Sulu scenes in my head to get it right. I don’t like that Scotty was manipulated by Braithwaite; he has gone through too much with this
crew to allow some stranger to put doubts in his head. It also didn’t make any sense that Spock and
McCoy couldn’t take the rest of the senior staff into confidence. They have all dealt with time travel before
they would be able to keep their wits about them. Also, Kirk has three nephews, not just
one. We only saw Peter in "Operation: Annihilate" as he is the youngest and still lives at home.
A minor good thing about the story
is the new characters created. Lt. Cmdr.
Flynn is a great addition, and her security crew is awesome as well. It makes me wish they were part of the
original show. Captain Hunter and the
border patrol showed a new and interesting part of Starfleet. I also thought it
was interesting that Kirk was once asked to join a poly family.
Mordreaux’s friends desire to go
back in time? Why? They are already living in a great time. What about being in the Federation is so bad
that you need to go back in time to get over it? These people seem to be overly spoiled rich
kids who are looking for adventure without understanding anything about life’s
natural difficulties. I am reminded
about the story of two people sitting on the bench and one is reading a book
about knights in the Middle Ages when he says “Wow, to live back then what a
time to be alive!” And his friend points
out that he is imagining being the knight not the poor sap who has to shovel
the knight’s horse’s droppings. Also,
the damage to the timeline Mordreaux says he sent
them so far back that the chance of them altering history is statistically
insignificant. That doesn’t make any
sense, the farther back you go the greater impact you would have. We each have two biological parents, four
grandparents, eight great-grandparents.
You go back far enough you should have more ancestors than there were
people living at the time and father than that more than were living ever. Guess what, there is some overlap. If your ancestors were from Western Europe,
then everyone who was in the Roman-Gallic Wars who reproduced is somehow your
ancestor. You change the outcome of one of these people and you alter the
course of history in a completely unforeseen fashion. Maybe they were inspired by the people of Sarpeidon?
 |
| A planet full of bad ideas |
It is a wonder how dense these
people can actually be, not only ignoring the dangers of the timeline, but when
someone appears in your own time device before you attended to use to warn you
against using it, your response is where is your proof? He is the proof as he just came out of your
time machine to tell you it all goes wrong! But you demand a computer
simulation? It isn’t until your friend’s
future self comes back that you start to take this seriously. Weird people.
This book has a lot of interesting twists and
turns. It is important to note that we
didn’t see all the time tracks. We did get foreshadows with both Braithwaite
and Scotty seeing Spock from the future before we realized that is who they
were seeing/taking to. We don’t see it
all, however. When Mordreaux and Spock go back to Mordreaux ‘s
lab, the old man points out that was a mess and wondered if they were on the
same track sense he always went peacefully when arrested. Later, when Spock travels back to get him to
call the whole thing off, one of the things the younger Mordreaux agreed to was
not to let himself be arrested. Then we
get Mordreaux from that timeline emerge because Spock wasn’t convincing
enough.
It was cool to see Kirk bond with Sulu near the end. It was also nice to
see the origin of Sulu’s promotion to the rank that would see him wear in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Now how did
Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov get theirs.
 |
| Kirk and Sulu |
Should it be canon: Yes, I think this a great story
to add to the Star Trek lore.
Nothing in this contradicts anything else in the series.
Cover Art: The cover art is a total lie. It has Kirk, Spock, Sulu in the front and
they all dressed like it is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Right above them is
the Enterprise after her post-five-year-mission refit. Yet this story
clearly takes place during the five-year mission. Heck, in a small way this story is the origin
of Sulu’s lieutenant commander promotion. The only thing right about it is
Sulu’s hair, as silly as that is.
Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5
