Engines of Destiny

Real world article
(written from a Production point of view)

Engines of Destiny is a Pocket TNG novel written by Gene DeWeese. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in February 2005.

Summary[]

From the book jacket: THE MACHINE AGE

After the apparent death of James T. Kirk on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B, Montgomery Scott decides to leave Starfleet. A chance encounter with a mysterious woman named Guinan leads him to hitch a ride on the USS Jenolan – which crashes into a Dyson sphere, leaving only Scotty to survive suspended as a transporter pattern…

Seventy-five years later, he is revived aboard the USS Enterprise-D – on which Guinan serves as bartender. But fate has not finished with either Scotty or Guinan. The engineer hatches an audacious plan to travel back in time and rescue Jim Kirk the moment before he would vanish into the nexus and bring him back to the twenty-fourth century without damaging the timeline.

Scotty's plan, however, does not go as expected. Though Kirk is rescued, the famed captain and the engineer, as well as Captain Picard, Guinan, and the crew of the Enterprise-D, are trapped in an altered past where there is no Federation, and no Human race. Sarek of Vulcan leads a ragtag collection of species fighting a losing battle against the Borg, who have swarmed into the Alpha Quadrant and assimilated Earth.

Starfleet's finest miracle worker must find a way to restore the timeline before the galaxy is overrun…

Excerpts of copyrighted sources are included for review purposes only, without any intention of infringement.

Background information[]

This was the last Star Trek novel written by author Gene DeWeese.
This novel was originally purchased by Pocket editor John Ordover in the late 1990s, with its intended release in August 2001. The novel went through several revisions and was ready for publication, but did not see release, despite inquiries from DeWeese and his agent. After Ordover left Pocket, DeWeese's agent contacted the publisher again, this time reaching new principal editor Marco Palmieri. Palmieri, discovering the situation, asked Star Trek writer Keith R.A. DeCandido to do a final editorial pass and take the novel through to publication as quickly as possible. (Voyages of Imagination, pp. 148-149)
Although Pocket Books classifies this novel as a Next Generation novel [1], Voyages of Imagination includes it within the Pocket TOS section of its listings.
Over the course of the novel, it is revealed that Kirk's removal from the Nexus resulted in Picard either failing or dying in his attempt to stop Tolian Soran in Star Trek Generations. As a result, Picard wasn't present when Earth was attacked by the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact, and, without his natural knowledge of the Borg from his time as Locutus, although the Borg were forced to use their time travel capabilities, their attempt to prevent First Contact was successful and Earth was easily assimilated. This led to an alternate timeline where the Federation never existed, and the last unassimilated species in the Alpha Quadrant are on the verge of defeat to the Borg.
Cover art by James Wang, design by John Vairo, Jr..