Eliyes

I really think that maybe running a spell check or checking google or looking at a screencap or poster so that you correctly spell the name of the badass covert operations headed by Nick Fury wouldn't be very hard, but since apparently it totally is, here is a handy mnemonic device to help you out:

I before E
except after C
or in words with an "ay"
like neighbour and weigh

In other words, there is no such organization as "SHEILD".

Hope that was helpful,
Ely

So I just finished reading The Janus Gate trilogy by L.A. Graf, and it has some of the most wildly inaccurate back cover blurbs I have ever seen on a Star Trek novel, and that's REALLY SAYING SOMETHING.

So I'm gonna talk about it! (Under the cuts, this post is huge.)

( Book 1: Present Tense )

It was a helluva cliff-hanger ending, I actually went DUN DUN DUNNNN so loud I hurt my throat. Moving on --

( Boot 2: Future Imperfect )

There's one weirdly, probably unintentionally flirty line from young!Sulu in this book that may cause some readers to activate their slashgoggles. Also, Spock's reaction to the kid offering to shake hands is great.

( Book 3: Past Prologue )

So, despite all this bitching, it's just the blurbs I'm irritated with: the books are really good. Being L.A. Graf books, they are especially good if you like Kirk being awesome and Sulu, Uhura and Chekov being not only individually awesome, but also the greatest of friends.

These books are also great if you like seeing more of canonical minor or background characters among the crew, including ones that were maybe spotlighted in an episode. I think that all the people we saw were canonical, but Memory Alpha's search function is apparently fuxxored, so I can't confirm that at this time.

TL;DR I RECOMMEND THIS TRILOGY BUT IGNORE THE JACKET BLURBS.

FYI, it's explicitly stated in TOS that there are no regulations against crewmates of any rank getting romantically involved. Even the captain and a yeoman or ensign. Hell, Kirk officiates a marriage at one point. It's just considered unprofessional for a line officer to have casual affairs amongst his crew, and generally acknowledged that people should try to keep the drama down as much as possible -- but there are no rules against it. Hell, in TAS we found out the Enterprise's very first captain was married to his CMO!

And if you want to argue that ST'09 or AOS or whatever you call the reboot is different because it's a different timeline, then I have a point for your consideration. The movie starts with Jim's mom in labour on a Starfleet vessel on which she and George Kirk Sr. both served. So there's a big argument against a non-fraternization reg having been introduced.

In the 2009 movie, from the end of Act I onward, Chekov is 17*, and McCoy is 31. Subsequently, a lot of the McCoy/Chekov ficcers out there have McCoy agonizing about having to wait until Chekov's 18 to make any kind of move on him (and several artists have made this a not-very-funny running gag).

What they aren't taking into account, apparently, is that a) we have no official "age of consent" ever specified in Star Trek (although 15 was mentioned for Human males in TNG -- or at least for Riker), and that b) right now in the real world the age of consent in the country of Russia AND the American State of Georgia is 16.

So really, they're good to go.


*which is nonsensical, since Chekov was 22 in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" which took place in late 2267 and therefore he should have been 13 in 2258 (which is when he said he was 17, since Pike met Jim in 2255 and everything from the Kobayashi Maru test onwards happens "Three Years Later"), and there is no reason whatsoever that the Kelvin's encounter with the Narada and all the changes that wrought on Jim Kirk's life should have caused Pavel Andreievich Chekov to be born four years early!

You know, I love the SGA episode "The Shrine", I really do, but there's one nit I have to pick that would have basically not have it happen if the writers had stuck with their own logic. The Stargate can't engage if there's something blocking the inner surface of the ring, so it has been said. I'd like to think that all that water would have counted.