Geordi La Forge
In The Last Best Hope, Geordi transfers to Mars’ Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards to oversee the construction of the thousands of starships needed for the Federation’s refugee fleet; an event also chronicled in the three-part Countdown comic prequel. Here he finds a lot of resistance to the mission, with many angered that their research and engineering work is being set aside for the bigger campaign. La Forge is keen to raise production and accepts the idea from Commander Estella Mackenzie to use bio-neural synthetics. The Daystrom Institute was tasked with undertaking the creation of the androids, and Geordi enlists the help of Bruce Maddox.
Geordi is on his way to Earth and not present on Mars when the synth plan goes hideously wrong and they attack the shipyards. The atmosphere of Mars ignites, thousands are killed, and the ships in orbit are all destroyed. La Forge believed that Maddox was distracted and made a mistake that led to the tragedy. Having seen his coworkers and colleagues all horrifically slaughtered, there is no doubt that La Forge has been deeply affected by their deaths and is likely suffering from survivor’s guilt. This is a story that needs to be told onscreen, and hopefully Geordi will make a return before the series concludes.
Will Riker and Deanna Troi
Taking place in 2386, around a year after the destruction of the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, The Dark Veil by James Swallow focuses on Will Riker and Deanna Troi’s experiences before the events of Picard season 1. It’s also a crossover with Pocket Books’ Star Trek: Titan book series, so it ties those novels into the Picard continuity. Many elements that had previously featured in the Titan series are retconned to fit into the new TV timeline, such as Riker being promoted to admiral, Picard marrying Beverly Crusher and having a son, the resurrection of Data in the body of B4, and Riker and Troi having another daughter, Natasha.
The book introduces us to Will and Deanna’s son, Thaddeus Riker, who has already died by the time we learn about him in the Picard episode “Nepenthe.” The boy is highly gifted at languages and is an explorer at heart, full of life and the desire to connect with new people and races. He is perhaps the perfect candidate to one day become a counselor or Starfleet captain, a future that nobody at this point could possibly know he wouldn’t live long enough to see.
Getting to know the character and the Riker family makes his death before Picard even more poignant. Of everything from these three books, his presence in The Dark Veil adds the most emotional depth to the television series.
The book also introduces the Jazari, an alien race with excellent reason to be afraid in the new post-Utopia Planitia atmosphere. Their storyline adds texture to the story of the synths and the Federation’s ban.
The Next Generation gave us a Will Riker as an excellent XO, while Picard gave us a Riker at the end of his career. It’s almost easy to forget that we’ve never actually seen him at the height of his power as a captain onscreen. As such, The Dark Veil is a treat, showing us Riker in his prime as captain of the Titan. It remains to be seen whether the Titan novel series, which ended in 2017, will be rebooted to fit into the new continuity, but for now it’s a welcome glimpse into a previously unknown part of this iconic character’s history.
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