Star Trek Novel Verse/YMMV

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• Character Derailment: In-universe, one of Ezri's biggest fears during the actual show was that people would treat her like a Replacement Goldfish for Jadzia. Apparently she should have been more concerned about the writers of the EU, since that's exactly what they've turned her into.
  • Riker, once a competent and confident commander, now a hand-wringing wimp who spends most of his time hiding in his ready room.
  • Picard is a now an emotionally fragile man who's often distant with his command crew and has at least one major breakdown on the bridge.
  • Troi, who had actually become a rather calm and centered Badass by the end of her appearances in the movies and shows, becomes an irrational harpy that would make her mother look like a joy to be married to.
• Complete Monster: Gothmara, Qagh.
• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: After the fourth or fifth planetary genocide, you'll probably become pretty inured to the whole concept.
  • This is no exaggeration. There are at least two planetary genocides just in the third book of the Cold Equations trilogy alone (and those are only the ones we know about). Of course by then the concept has been run so hard into the ground that the screams of an entire world dying provoke more eye-rolling than horror. It seems that the expanded universe simply can't figure out any sufficient level of drama or threat without having a few dozen billion people die in terror along the way.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Torvig Bu-kar-nguv of Star Trek: Titan. Possibly President Nanietta Bacco, who went from a "the president resigned last book so we need a new president" character to a popular character carrying her own West Wing-style political novel (Star Trek: Articles of the Federation).
• Fan Discontinuity: There are a lot of good reasons to prefer the Star Trek Online continuity over this one. Thankfully the STO one seems to be considered closer to "official" than the novelverse.
• Fridge Logic: One of the more infamous is the desire to make sense of the Tamarian language from Darmok. A very popular episode, but great amounts of Fridge Logic result, for the books to eventually deal with. For example, how do the children learn the legends? Answer: Probably not unlike how Chinese speakers learn the four word idioms. English too has plenty of strange expressions with obscure origins, but speakers understand the meaning from the context. In fact, the metaphorical meaning tends to become the ordinary meaning over time; for example, English "understand" no longer refers to standing under anything but has become a dead metaphor. Or perhaps the children are taught the stories via some visual medium, like movies or plays.
  • Fridge Logic #2: To build starships, one needs language more precise and less ambiguous than metaphors. But this too is all explained in the Star Trek Novel Verse. Tamarian mathematical and musical notations are very closely linked. Tamarian engineers and programmers literally sing equations, transferring instructions through music. Even in ordinary speech, numerical information can be conveyed through the pitch of a Tamarian’s vocal harmonics, though it can be hard for untrained Human ears to discern the nuances, just as it can be hard for an English speaker to learn to hear Chinese tones.

"This answers the infamous question one linguist posed to illustrate the apparent limitations of Tamarian as a practical language: “Mirab-his-sails-unfurled factor what, sir?”

• • Fridge Logic #3: Why the universal translator even translates their language in the metaphorical way in the first place, when we know the UT works on some kind of technological telepathy. If when they say "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" they mean "alliance", then why doesn't the UT just translate it as "alliance"? Answer: It wouldn't work in real time. "Computer: Cross-reference: Darmok, Jhillard, Tanagra." Computer tells the story, they go "Ah!" This would resemble the footnotes commonly seen in anime subtitles (see case 3A under Translation Style Choices). But explaining Tamarian legends to a foreigner is a slow process. And besides, it loses the more subtle information about what kind of alliance is meant: in Tropese, it'd be close to Enemy Mine.
  • It even loops right back around to Fridge Brilliance: English "set" has over a hundred meanings distinguished only by context, and Mandarin Chinese can be just as bad with its homophones and four-word idioms. Likewise, there's so many possibilities for a particular Tamarian phrase, it requires an incredible intuition to determine the intended meaning, one normally honed through a lifetime of speaking such a condensed form of language. The universal translators are notorious (Depending on the Writer or perhaps the make and model) for having difficulties with some of the more 'quirky' or abstract parts of languages.
    • Just imagine the possibilities for that one phrase: "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra". Now think of all the different possibilities for meaning based upon the different possibilities of emphasizing a word. "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." Even without knowing who Darmok and Jalad are or where Tanagra is, it's obvious that each of those is stressing something entirely different. And that's without even getting into the different meanings you could have of stressing more than one word in the phrase.
• Mary Sue: Sonek Pran of A Singular Destiny, so very much. Exotic racial background? He's actually 1/4 Human, 1/4 Bajoran, 1/4 Betazoid and 1/4 Vulcan, plus he has the distinctive Bajoran nose, Betazoid eyes and Vulcan ears. Crazy connections to other characters? He's been an advisor to many Federation presidents, and the Empress of the Imperial Romulan State knows of him somewhat through his reputation as a folk musician. Uber-skills? Why he's the only man who can negotiate tricky situations and he serves as the mentor to Ezri Dax.
  • Erika Hernandez. Picard actually sums her up by responding to someone who says "We did it" with "No, Erika did it. We all just went along for the ride." He's smiling as he says it, which really just makes her Sueishness worse.
  • Captain Dax's security chief. Comes from a race who's practically immune to injury anyway, but also heals any injuries they do take incredibly fast. She manages to take down multiple Hirogen without breaking a sweat (when previously a single Hirogen was shown to be a tough fight for a battle-seasoned Jem'hadar elder). What really drives home her Mary Sue factor is that instead of distinctly inhuman features or even being a Starfish Alien, she's routinely mistaken for an Orion... y'know, the infamously hot green space babes. She's basically some thirteen-year-old's online roleplaying character.
• Nightmare Fuel: The new and improved Borg.

We are the Borg. You will be annihilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness have become irrelevant. Resistance is futile... but welcome.

• • Becomes a serious case of Badass Decay when their change is ultimately compared to a child throwing a tantrum because it's upset and hungry but too stupid to know what it wants. This is the actual, literal way they're described by the Superior Species that rather effortlessly overcomes them. What's worse, the text shows that they're right.
• Tear Jerker: Hadlo's death. "Oralius! Prophets! My love is for you both!"
  • Owen Paris' last message to Tom in Star Trek: Destiny.
  • Kieran Duffy's death.
  • Garak: "There is no home anymore! Can't you see, its gone!!"