Author’s Annotations
Note: These annotations for Reap the Whirlwind contain some spoilers. They are meant to be used as a reference after reading the book. Read them before at your own peril.
Quick Navigation
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10
Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15
Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20
Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25
Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 | Chapter 29
Chapter 30 | Chapter 31
Part Titles
p1 – Prologue: “The Fire and the Song” is a reference to the volcanic fires of Tholia and the Conduit-song of the Shedai.
p7 – Part One: “The Brink of Shadow” is meant to evoke a sense of coming darkness and impending catastrophe.
p109 – Part Two: “The Bright Face of Danger” was the title of a 19th-century novel; it is used here to signal that we are moving from the setup, the implication of threats, into action and the realization of those perils.
p353 – Part Three: “Instruments of Darkness” is derived from lines spoken by Banquo as a warning, in the William Shakespeare play Macbeth:
But ’tis strange;
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.
Basically, the line means sometimes our enemies mix just enough truth with the lies they tell us to lead us to our destruction.
p401 – Epilogue: “Ministers of Vengeance” is an inversion of the common phrase “ministers of grace.”
Prologue
p3 – The ability of the Shedai Wanderer to cross interstellar space without need for a Conduit was established in Summon the Thunder.
p5 – In case it’s not obvious what’s happening here, the Wanderer has lured a Tholian battleship into a trap, and she is abducting its crew to be enslaved in the Shedai’s primary Conduit on Jinoteur, aka The First World.
Chapter 1
p9 – Dr. M’Benga’s given name was established in Harbinger to be “Jabilo,” an African name meaning “medicine man.” This conflicts with the given names established in some other licensed works.
p11 – The Martian city of Cydonia is an invention of the author.
p11 – The relationship between T’Prynn and the surgically altered (to appear human) Klingon woman Anna Sandesjo (aka Lurqal) was established in Harbinger and expanded upon in Summon the Thunder.
p12 – The destruction of Palgrenax occurred in Summon the Thunder.
p15 – The Daedelus-class U.S.S. Lovell was assigned to Starbase 47 in Summon the Thunder, and had previously been featured in several 23rd-century stories in the Star Trek: Corps of Engineers eBook series.
p16 – Captain Adelard Nassir of the Sagittarius was established in Harbinger. Commander Clark Terrell is the same man as the captain of the Reliant in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, set some twenty years after this story.
Other personnel on the Sagittarius established in Harbinger included chief engineer Master Chief Petty Officer Mike “Mad Man” Ilucci and science officer Ensign Vanessa Theriault. Chief medical officer Dr. Lisa Babitz and second officer Lieutenant Commander Bridget McLellan make their first appeareances here. The Saurian scout, Senior Chief Petty Officer Razka, was created by the author for the 2004 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel A Time to Kill, set more than a century after Vanguard.
p17 – The remote nature of the star Typerias is derived from Geoffrey Mandel’s astrocartographic reference book Star Trek Star Charts. The crew of Vanguard learned of the existence of Jinoteur in Summon the Thunder.
p18 – The mention of Jinoteur signals playing havoc with Vanguard’s systems is a reference to the Star Trek: S.C.E./Vanguard eBook crossover novella “Distant Early Warning” by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore.
p18 – Reyes’s mention of Erilon alludes to the Endeavour crew’s violent encounter on that world with the Shedai Wanderer.
p19 – Captain Zhao Sheng of the U.S.S. Endeavour was killed by the Shedai Wanderer during a landing mission on Erilon. His first officer, Atish Khatami, was promoted to captain and succeeded him on the Endeavour.
p19 – Jeanne Vinueza, the ex-wife of Diego Reyes, was mentioned by her first name only in the series bible, and in Harbinger. This is her first appearance, and the first time she is identified by her full name.
p23 – The fact that some humans possess “esper” skills (i.e., telepathy, etc.) in the 23rd century is a nod to Dr. Elizabeth Dehner in the original series’ second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.
Chapter 2
p27 – Ensigns Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson are named in honor of the actors who played Dante Hicks and Randall Graves in Kevin Smith’s 1994 indie comedy film Clerks.
p28 – “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” Another nod to Clerks. As is the reference to hockey.
p29 – Anderson’s estimate of how long the hockey ice would last is another reference to Clerks, in which Dante’s rooftop hockey match ended after 12 minutes.
p30 – Lieutenant Commander Mahmud al-Khaled of the SCE ship U.S.S. Lovell was established in the 23rd-century S.C.E. eBooks. His first appearance in Vanguard was in Summon the Thunder.
p33 – SCE officers Kurt Davis and Margaux Luciano were named for then-coworkers of mine at the SCI FI Channel (in the days before it was SyFy).
Chapter 3
p39 – The awakenings of the various Shedai were meant to evoke the tone of H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of the elder gods.
p43 – The naming convention for Tholian characters is consistent with that established in the novel The Lost Era: The Sundered, by Michael Martin and Andy Mangels.
Chapter 4
p45 – The governmental roles of Gorkon, Lugok, Indizar, and Sturka remain the same as depicted in Harbinger and Summon the Thunder.
p47 – As established in Harbinger, the Klingons refer to the Taurus Reach as “the Gonmog Sector.”
p48 – QuchHa’, meaning “Unhappy Ones,” was established in Summon the Thunder (and other sources) as the Klingon word for those Klingons who were rendered more human-looking by the 22nd-century Augment Virus, as seen in the TV series Star Trek Enterprise.
p49 – This marks the first mention of the Klingon starship Zin’za, which will be a major player throughout the remainder of the Vanguard saga.
p49 – The qIj’bIQ, a dark river in the First City on Qo’noS, was established in the 2004 TNG novel A Time to Kill.
p53 – The nature of Tholian thoughtspace was established in Harbinger.
Chapter 5
p58 – The reference to a Klingon D-5 cruiser is intended to root the book solidly in the early phase of the original series. Lieutenant Christopher Gabbert is named for another SCI FI friend of mine.
p61 – I included this scene of Greenfield taking Jetanien down a peg as a salute to my SCI FI pal Toby Greenfield, who is a smart, feisty dame not to be trifled with or disrespected.
p63 – The exchange with Tholian ambassador Sesrene was depicted in Summon the Thunder.
p66 – Tom Walker’s place was established in Harbinger, and named in honor of one of my college buddies.
p67 – This is the first appearance of Sagittarius senior engineer’s mate Petty Officer First Class Salagho Threx and enlisted mechanic Crewman Torvin.
p68 – This is the first mention of the Sagittarius’s Andorian zhen pilot, Lieutenant Celerasayna zh’Firro, and Caitian scout, Lieutenant Niwara. Andorian genders in Vanguard are consistent with those established in Heather Jarman’s novel This Gray Spirit.
p70 – The description of cabaret owner Manón is consistent with the description of her species, the Silgov, per their first appearance in S.C.E. eBook novella #49 Small World.
p73 – In retrospect, I shouldn’t have had Reyes order a Syrah if he was recommending seafood. If I had this scene to revise today, I’d probably make his wine selection a vermentino or an albariño.
p77 – “Chartreuse” by Paul Tillotson, and “Black and Blue” by Gene Harris, the songs referenced in this scene, are both real, and are among my favorite jazz piano compositions.
p83 – Here is the first appearance of Sagittarius personnel Petty Officer Second Class Karen Cahow, engineer; Lieutenant Sorak, lead scout; and medical technician Ensign Nguyen Tan Bao.
p85 – In essence, Xiong is recapping the events of Harbinger and Summon the Thunder as much for the reader’s benefit as for the Sagittarius crew.
p88 – The revelation that Starfleet let the Klingons beat them to Jinoteur so that they could observe the Klingons’ fate for intelligence purposes was my attempt to make sense of an otherwise unfathomable tactical decision depicted in Summon the Thunder.
p95 – Pon farr, the Vulcan “blood fever” that accompanies the mating impulse, was established in the original series episode “Amok Time”.
Chapter 6
p99 – The incident in which the Sagittarius spoofed the sensors of a Klingon warship occurred in Summon the Thunder.
p100 – Fek’lhr was established in the TNG episode “Devil’s Due” as the mythological guardian of Gre’thor, the Klingon underworld for the dishonored dead.
Chapter 7
No annotations.
Chapter 8
p107 – “Choir of cacophony” is a nod to the Rush song “Bastille Day,” from the album Fly by Night.
Chapter 9
p114 – The preparation of Xiong for his boarding mission to the Tholian battleship, and the conditions and technology he finds there, are based on details from the Star Trek novel The Lost Era: The Sundered.
p118 – I don’t know what a plorgha is; I made it up. Assume it’s some kind of sweaty Denobulan beast of the field.
Chapter 10
p138 – The references to Andorian religion — the Codices, Charaezaelos, and appearing Whole or unWhole before Uzaveh the Infinite — were either established in or inspired by the depiction of Andorian spiritual beliefs in the DS9 novel This Gray Spirit.
p141 – The effect of Shedai wounds on carbon-based flesh was established in Summon the Thunder.
Chapter 11
No annotations.
Chapter 12
p150 – The sub rosa dominance of Orion women was established in Star Trek Enterprise.
p157 – The animal-vegetable hybrid species known as the Brassicans owes their name to the Latin taxonomy for broccoli.
p159 – “We didn’t park it. We abandoned it.” This, of course, is an homage to the movie Stripes, starring Bill Murray and Ivan Reitman.
Chapter 13
p173 – The description of Theriault’s near-drowning and its effects on her body were based upon the best accounts I could find from survivors of such incidents, and from medical research on the body’s reaction to drowning.
Chapter 14
p175 – The shuttlecraft Kepler is named for astronomer Johannes Kepler.
p176 – Lieutenant Donovan Adams was named for another of my SCI FI comrades.
p177 – SCI FI represents again with Ensign Blaise Selby.
p180 – The mention of the Ilium Range is a sly nod to the movie Aliens.
p182 – I have no idea what a lingta is, but apparently it’s something the Klingons slaughter for whatever reason.
I postulate that the qam is a Klingon unit of distance measurement roughly equivalent to two meters; it is derived from the term qelIqam.
p186 – The bridge crew of the Lovell has been previously established in several 23rd-century S.C.E. novellas by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore.
Chapter 15
p189 – Yes, I know the spelling and capitalization of the Klingon first officer’s name — BelHoQ — are unusual. But if you sound it out, you’ll see this character was named as an homage to the corrupt archeologist René Belloq in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
p189-190 – I made ample use of Klingon epithets from Marc Okrand’s Klingon Dictionary in the scenes featuring the Zin’za’s crew.
p191 – The Klingon painstik (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) was established in the TNG episode “Coming of Age”.
p192 – The word jeghpu’wI means “conquered people” in Klingon.
p193 – I made up the Klingon word bIngDub, but it’s pretty easy to translate in context, I think.
p194 – Lamneth Starport is an homage to the epic album-side suite “The Fountain of Lamneth” on the Rush album Caress of Steel.
p195 – The exchange between Pennington and Quinn that ends with the line, “I don’t know; it’s a mystery,” is an homage to the film Shakespeare in Love, written by Tom Stoppard.
p197 – The theft of a probe by Quinn and Pennington took place in Summon the Thunder.
Chapter 16
No annotations.
Chapter 17
p211 – The Tholian sword is a nod to The Lost Era: The Sundered.
p219 – Ming Xiong’s escape from the sinking Tholian lifeboat took me days to figure out. Eventually, I figured out how to adapt an idea from my very first Star Trek book, The Starfleet Survival Guide, to save Xiong.
Chapter 18
p227 – I admit it: I had way too much fun writing this gross bit of sabotage aboard the Zin’za.
p228 – The name of the Borzha II spaceport’s administrator, Bohica, is an in-joke; as an acronym, BOHICA is common military parlance for, “Bend over, here it comes again.”
p230 – Broon, as you might recall, was Ganz’s rival crime lord in Harbinger. Elasians are the swarthy, exotic species seen in the original series episode “Elaan of Troyius”; here’s a link to Zibalians on Memory Alpha.
p231 – Another hypothetical Klingon unit of measurement, the menIqam is meant to be roughly equivalent to two millimeters.
p232 – Like I said, this subplot was just way too much fun.
Chapter 19
p237 – The effects of middle age on Deltan male biochemistry are inventions of the author.
p246 – The Carrington Award was a prestigious medical honor first mentioned in the DS9 episode “Prophet Motive”.
p247 – What’s going on in this sequence is that I’m linking the research into the Shedai meta-genome to Starfleet’s near-miraculous 24th-century tissue-regeneration technology.
p249 – In case the phrase “luciferous splendor” didn’t make it obvious enough, the Apostate is intended to serve as an analog for Lucifer. “Sympathy for the Devil,” indeed.
Chapter 20
p251 – To recap some info from the Harbinger annotations, Cervantes Quinn is named in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of the first modern novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha. This (along with the Rush song “Cyngus X-1” on the Hemispheres album) is the inspiration for his ship being named Rocinante (Don Quixote’s horse) and its designation as a “Mancharan starhopper”.
Chapter 21
p267 – Did you notice the error on this page? It’s the sentence that reads, “A stiff breeze fluttered her blue minidress.” Theriault, like the rest of the Sagittarius crew, is supposed to be wearing a green jumpsuit. The line editor, a copy editor, a proofreader, and I all missed this.
p275 – “We reach?” A small nod to the original series episode “The Way to Eden”.
Chapter 22
p278 – The bridge crew of the Endeavour was established in Harbinger and Summon the Thunder.
p289 – General Order 24, the Starfleet directive to destroy a planet’s surface by orbital bombardment, was established in the original series episode “A Taste of Armageddon”.
Chapter 23
No annotations.
Chapter 24
No annotations.
Chapter 25
No annotations.
Chapter 26
p323 – This scene was written specifically to bring the book’s cover image to life.
p336 – Nassir’s assurance to Xiong is an homage to a classic moment in the film Animal House.
p338 – Do I really need to explain the Denebian slime devil reference?
Chapter 27
No annotations.
Chapter 28
p350 – The Vulcan term val’reth was coined by the author in Harbinger, to mean an individual who harbors the katra of another against his or her will.
Chapter 29
p357 – Reyes’s “inverted Midas touch” is an allusion to the mythical king who turned all he touched to gold. Though the phrase “Midas touch” is often used as a metaphor for good luck, as it is here, in the original fable it actually was revealed to be a curse in disguise.
p359 – The name of the Starfleet transport ship Malacca is taken from the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest commercial shipping lanes on Earth.
p362 – The referenced Admiral McCreary is an homage to composer Bear McCreary, who earned widespread acclaim for his work on the soundtrack for the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series.
p363 – Starfleet Intelligence agents Cofell and Verheiden are homages to Battlestar Galactica producers Anne Cofell-Saunders and Mark Verheiden.
p367 – Lurqal’s observation that “Wild things don’t feel sorry for themselves” is an homage to D.H. Lawrence’s famous poem “Self Pity”.
p369 – Altair water is a non-alcoholic beverage mentioned in the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
p377 – Reyes’s sponsor to Starfleet Academy, Captain Rymer, was named in honor of Battlestar Galactica series producer and director Michael Rymer.
Chapter 30
p383 – Doctor Carol Marcus was first seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Her arrival on Vanguard is intended to link the research into the Shedai to her future work on Project Genesis.
p392 – The Vulcan healing trance, and the beneficial effects of a warming blanket, were established in the original series episode “A Private Little War” — which, not coincidentally, also featured Doctor M’Benga.
p394 – M’Benga’s observation about T’Prynn’s actions during the koon-ut-kal-if-fee being legal unless she killed a fellow member of Starfleet is a nod to the original series episode “Amok Time” in which Spock was led to believe he’d done exactly that.
Chapter 31
p396 – Chef Matt Romano, owner of Café Romano, is named for yet another of my old SCI FI amigos.
Epilogue
p403 – “Two to Tango” is a play on the common phrase, because in the final scene two persons meet at coordinates code-named “Tango”, and it also refers to the fact that the final scene is a one-on-one duel between T’Prynn and Sten.
Icarion is an homage to the name of Aeryn Sun’s former Peacekeeper company (within the Pleisar regiment) on Farscape.
p404 – The challenge phrases used by Zett and his Klingon contact are taken from Hagakure, a famous book of Japanese bushido philosophy.
p405 – I’ll let you in on a little secret: At the time I wrote this scene, I had no idea what was in the sarcophagus. Naturally, Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore took that as both a challenge and an opportunity…
To see who I envisioned playing the roles of the Sagittarius crew members not detailed in the annotations for Harbinger, right-click here to download the PDF of my behind-the-scenes development file, U.S.S. Sagittarius Technical Information & Crew.
