Star Trek: Cast No Shadow
A novel by James Swallow, part of the so-called Star Trek Novel Verse. Cast No Shadow is set seven years after The Undiscovered Country, and reveals the fate of Valeris in the aftermath of her conviction for treason.
It also involves an attack by Kriosian rebels on a Klingon colony world, using a subspace weapon.
Tropes used in Star Trek: Cast No Shadow include:
- Continuity Nod: Several, most notably to Star Trek: Forged in Fire, when Sulu recalls his friendship with Curzon Dax, and alludes to previous adventures in Klingon politics.
- Covers Always Lie: The author wasn’t too pleased with Spock taking up most of the cover; while thematically the image made some degree of sense, Spock's role in the novel is limited to a cameo.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Klingons are infamous for this, as the Kriosian terrorists reflect.
- Emotions vs. Stoicism: The central character is a troubled Vulcan, dealing with her hatred for the openly passionate and aggressive Klingons, so naturally this trope comes into play. Also, the Kriosians are noted as passionate and prone to extremes of reaction, in contrast to the Vulcans (or the Vulcan ideal, anyway...).
- Gut Feeling: Vaughn has one, but Commander Egan doesn't want to hear of it. He tells Vaughn that his department deals with proven facts, not with feelings or intuition.
- Valeris discusses the concept, in her usual curt manner, when the Kriosians want to meet her face to face in order to discover "the colour of her soul".
- Incurable Cough of Death: Colen, complete with blood.
- Last-Second Word Swap: General Igdar challenges Kaj regarding her "communications with the - the Federation", and it's clear that he was going to say "with the enemy". The Klingons and the Federation have been at peace for seven years by this point.
- Military Maverick: Sulu, to some degree, though this isn't always a bad thing when Klingons are part of the equation. Regarding the point that his assignment to the mission is potentially provocative, Sulu also recalls the words of Curzon Dax; "we'll burn that bridge when we come to it".
- No True Scotsman: The House of Q'unat are renegades and thus no longer "really" Klingons.
- Revenge: All over the place.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized
- Sacred Hospitality: Following the first attack on Da'Kel, President Ra-ghoratreii uses the Klingon tradition of this to pressure their government into accepting Starfleet aid in hunting down the guilty party. He points out that the Federation citizens killed in the attack were under the official protection of the Empire at the time.
- Shout-Out/To Shakespeare: General Chang is involved in the backstory, so this is inevitable (Commander Miller’s suggestion that they “keep the Shakespeare appreciation to a minimum" notwithstanding)
- The Stoic: Kasiel, by Klingon standards, and in direct contrast to his predecessor as ambassador to the Federation, Kamarag.
- Suicide Attack: Seryl
- Weapon of Mass Destruction
