Name: Dwellers in the Crucible
Author: Margaret Wander Bonanno
Publication Date: 9/1985
Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #25)
Page Number: 308
Historian’s Note: Sometime during The Wrath of Khan
Cast of Characters: Rear Admiral James T. Kirk Captain Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA
“Bones” Commander Montgomery
Scott AKA “Scotty” Commander Hikaru
Sulu Commander Nyota
Uhura Lieutenant (junior
grade) Saavik Ensign Chen Fleet Admiral Heihachiro Nogura Commodore José Mendez Commander Mai-Ling Hong Commander Tamerlane Hong Special Agent Gadj Cleante
al-Faisal T'Shael Jali'lar Kandowali Krnsandor L'am Resh'da Maprida'hn Theras shoorShras Salet Sekal Sethan Stalek Stimm T'Pei T'Sehn Dr. Palmer
Admiral Korax Lord
Tolz Kenran Lord Krazz Commander Kalor Imperial Security Chief Dr'ell Imperial Defense Minister Lefv Admiral-Superlative Meru'th The Romulan Fleet Commander Subcommander Tal Centurion Delar Chamberlin Garefv m'kh Unnamed Sulamids
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Galileo
III NCC-1701/3, Starbase 11, USS Horizon (registry unknown), IKS Flyer's Pride,
ChR Gauntlet, IKS Irik, and IKS Kalash
Planets: Earth and Vulcan
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story opens with a kidnapping. The kidnaped are a human named Cleante al-Faisal, a Vulcan named T'Shael, and Andorian and some Deltans. These individuals are the Warrantors of the Peace an idea the Vulcans came up with in the time of Surak. The Warrantors are voluntary hostages of sorts. They are family members of government officials of various Federation member worlds. They would first to die if their worlds attacked one of its neighbors. Realizing that kidnapping them could be used to destabilize the Federation the Romulans and the Klingons plan to do just that. The Romulans do the kidnapping while the Klingons hold them.
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| Klingons and Romulans looking to kidnap |
The bulk of the story is told
between the two main warrantors Cleante and T’Shael. The book often flows back and forth between
the present and the past. The audience sees
Cleante and T’Shael’s backstory. They
met at the Warrantors headquarters on Vulcan and formed an unlikely friendship.
T’Shael leads a lonely life with a distant mother and a father who is caring
but dying. Her father is a famous
musician known as the gifted one. Her
mother leaves them to serve on the Intrepid and she dies when it is
destroyed by that large single-celled organism from “The Immunity Syndrome.” Her dying father has to break the news to her
that she will soon have no parents at all.
Having no family leads her to volunteer for warrantor status.
The story shifts to our normal set
of heroes, who have the entire situation explained to them while being told not
to do anything about it. This becomes a
recurring thing whenever the audience comes back to the Enterprise.
Two Klingons in charge of the prisoners. They are Lord Krazz and Commander Kalor. Trusted with such important prisoners who may be able to allow the Klingons and Romulans to bring the Federation to its knees, the two Klingons decide their physical passions are more important and try to rape the prisoners. They are stopped however because of the mental powers of the Deltans overwhelm the Klingons, so they abandon the rape attempt.
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| Klingons being evil |
Despite the Deltan save, the
Andorian warrantor dies. This causes
protest from Andor and the Romulans themselves are upset. On the Enterprise the crew is briefed
and does nothing. Shortly after, the
Deltans all die by suicide leaving only two hostages left, the main stars of
the book.
Subcommander Tal shows up for an inspection
and is appalled by the conditions the prisoners are kept in. He reports this to
his Commander—the same Romulan Fleet Commander from “The Enterprise
Incident”—she agrees to check on the prisoners herself. 
Tal
An unexpected earthquake leads to
the death of Lord Krazz, leading Kalor in charge. The Romulan Commander ordered Kalor to treat
the prisoners better under threat of death and Kalor agrees to her demands. While this is going on it turns out T’Shael
is going through the pon farr. She instructs Cleante to bind her, so she
won’t hurt her friend. This reminds me
of a werewolf. Spock was bad but he
didn’t have to be tied up. Tal suggests
they get a younger Romulan male to sleep with T’Shael, but the Commander just
helps her mentally get over it.
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| Fleet Commander |
After the Romulans leave Kalor
decides to start torturing the prisoners again. He forces T’Shael to spend the night outside
in the freezing temperatures to test the Vulcans resistance to the cold. As T’Shael is suffering Cleante decides to
seduce Kalor. He resists at first and
then agrees to take her offer. Cleante
at this point starts to exhibit major Stockholm Syndrome as she finds herself
starting to fall for Kalor.
This doesn’t last however because
the Romulan Commander arrives and shoots Kalor with a disruptor after catching
the two in bed. Kirk and Spock show up
and find the two remaining warrantors exactly where the Commander wanted them
to be found. It appears her strategy was
to kill them with kindness. She wanted
Kirk and Spock to see how nice she was to the warrantors so they would feel bad
about stealing her cloaking device. In
the end Cleante doesn’t have to be a warrantor anymore, she is just happy it
turns out Kalor didn’t leave her pregnant.
She decides to go to Vulcan and hangout with T’Shael who has warrantor
for life status.
Additional thoughts: I had a hard time taking this story seriously as I found the premise to be absurd. The very idea that United Federation of Planets is held together by an exchanging of hostages amongst the member worlds is beyond weird. Apparently, the author was inspired by the exchanging of hostages in the medieval world and some Cold War theory. It doesn’t even work in story; the warrantors themselves are supposed to be the relatives of the high-ranking officials on the various planets. If the leader of Earth decided to invade Andora that leader would have to face the reality that their loved one would be the first to die. However, in story the warrantors are allowed to have substitutes take their place similar to a US Civil War draftee. This defeats the entire purpose because now it’s no longer the leader’s loved one on the firing line but a stranger. It’s explained that T’Shael is a substitute for Spock himself, who would normally have to serve because of the position of his father. Again, this doesn’t make sense as Spock’s father is not a leader of Vulcan government but rather a diplomatic representative. Sarek represents Vulcan but he doesn’t decide what actions it takes. Also, all the warrantors live on Vulcan even the Vulcan ones, so how is this stopping Vulcan from doing anything?
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| Does the Federation need to exchange hostages? |
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| Maybe |
The time period was also hard to
place. I had originally thought it would
take place between the second five-year mission between The Motion Picture and
The Wrath of Khan. However, it seemed
might have been during the second film. Saavik is here and McCoy mentions that
they have a crew of all cadets. The crew
is wearing “the monster maroons.” Kirk
is referred to as “Admiral” rather than the temporary commission of “Captain”
he received in The Motion Picture. Yet,
he is in command of the Enterprise and the only time he held that
command and called “Admiral” was during TWOK.
That makes the story more improbable to me that on the ship’s way to
Regula 1 they stopped by and picked up the warrantors.
The story also is one in which you
are introduced to a situation or character and then the reader is treated to a
long flashback explaining who they are, what they are about, and what their
relationships with each other are. This
is not an illegitimate form of storytelling, but it does make moving the plot
forward difficult. Without the filler
the story might be only a quarter as long.
We see the Romulan Fleet Commander
from “The Enterprise Incident.” She was
in the last book I read too. Star Trek
novelists seem to find her fascinating.
I tend to judge her appearance based on how they explain the aftermath
of her capture and loss of cloaking device.
In the last book it was explained that she was able to escape
consequence because the Praetor was her father.
In this version she did have claw her back to prominence, but it was
aided by her being the Praetor's mistress. This is clear contradiction, I hope.
She has also seemed to have learned
from her boss, the Praetor, as we see her happily bed her own subordinates that
she finds attractive This includes
Subcommander Tal, who it is said in the book has refused promotions so he can
stay with her. I didn’t like that as I
felt the relationship between her and Tal was based on professionalism and
respect. I don’t have any issue with her bedding other subordinates though it’s
clearly an improvement on her from the last book where she was dealing in love
slaves. This book at least has the
Commander moving in the right direction.
Speaking of love slaves, that was
some serious Stockholm Syndrome we saw from Cleante. When she started to have feelings for Kalor
and even started to sympathize with him.
She is also very insistent to McCoy and everyone else that what went on
between them was consensual despite the fact that they both his prisoners and
he was torturing her friend.
Although I highlight in each of my
reviews the most important character and second most important character from
the crew during the story this one is a bit off. In this book the two most important members
of the crew are Kirk and Spock, but they do nothing in the story. The regular cast of characters are completely
useless. They could have been written
out of the story, and nothing would have changed except the name of the ship
that Cleante and T’Shael leave in.
On the last note I found it funny
that the author tried to present the Klingons as opposite of the Vulcans in
that they age faster than humans. Neat idea that Star Trek didn’t stick
with.
Should it be canon: I am going to say no. There is just too much weird stuff in this
book to try and have it be canonical.
Cover Art:. The cover has two young women on the
bottom of the image is Cleante on the viewer’s right and T’Shael on the viewers
left. Above T’Shael is the face of Kirk
and above Cleante is the face of Spock.
Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5
