Starfleet: Year One

With the Romulan War over, the new Daedalus-class flagship is prepared for launch.

Summary
From the book jacket:
 * Earth Command defeated the Romulans with the help of other races across the galaxy, and the Neutral Zone was established. Out of that necessary and uneasy collaboration came the United Federation of Planets and its combined forces, Starfleet. But the close quarters of a starship among so many races and personalities is discomforting to all the ranks. Control of what could grow to be the greatest power in the galaxy is at stake and no one is taking it lightly.


 * A powerful new class of starship, the Daedalus, flagship of the new Federation fleet, is up for grabs among the six new Starfleet captains. Admiral Ed Walker is determined to keep this jewel, and all of Starfleet, under military command and away from the scientists. He chooses Captain Aaron Stiles as his protégé in the endeavor. Stiles, bent on avenging the death of his brother Jake, faces stiff resistance from Walker's rebellious space jock nephew Dane and scientist Captain Bryce Shumar. But they face their biggest threat of all in an unknown alien race destroying the bases of the Oreias system. Can brains and brawn combine to win without killing each other in the process?

Memorable Quotes
QUOTES

Background Information

 * This novel was originally published as a monthly serial, appended to Pocket Books' regular series books, over twelve months in 1999-2000. This collected edition was slightly rewritten, with some additional and extended scenes.
 * Author Michael Jan Friedman began to conceive of the concept for Starfleet: Year One following his work on A Star to Steer Her By. When editor John Ordover was looking for a back-up feature to serialize across the Star Trek novel range as an experiment, Friedman proposed his idea, a story set a hundred years before The Original Series. He had hoped to develop the concept into a seven-novel series, covering the first seven years of the Federation and following the characters introduced in this novel. Unfortunately, the development of Star Trek: Enterprise put paid to such a series, and Pocket Books assured Paramount that no further Starfleet: books would be published while the series was on the air. (Star Trek Magazine issue 138) The collected edition contains a disclaimer that the novel was "unrelated to the events in the television series Enterprise".
 * The individual chapters appeared in the following novels:
 * Chapter One
 * Double or Nothing
 * The First Virtue
 * Chapter Two
 * The Forgotten War
 * Pathways (paperback version)
 * Chapter Three
 * Across the Universe
 * Triangle: Imzadi II (paperback version)
 * Chapter Four
 * The Quiet Place
 * Dark Allies
 * Chapter Five
 * The Badlands, Book One
 * The Badlands, Book Two
 * Chapter Six
 * Strange New Worlds (mass market paperback version)
 * Strange New Worlds II (mass market paperback version)
 * The appearance of Chapter Six in the SNW reprints was a last-minute change, following delays to the pair of novels originally planned to carry the chapter. Editor John Ordover made an offer to ship out the chapter to anyone angered by the resultant need to repurchase the SNW volumes specifically for Starfleet: Year One.
 * Chapter Seven
 * Gemworld, Book One
 * Gemworld, Book Two
 * Chapter Eight
 * The Fall of Terok Nor
 * The War of the Prophets
 * Chapter Nine
 * Inferno
 * Dark Victory (paperback version)
 * Chapter Ten
 * A Stitch in Time
 * Vulcan's Forge (paperback version)
 * Chapter Eleven
 * Wagon Train to the Stars
 * Belle Terre
 * Chapter Twelve
 * Rough Trails
 * The Flaming Arrow

Characters

 * Ed Walker
 * Aaron Stiles
 * Jake Stiles
 * Dane
 * Bryce Shumar
 * Lydia Littlejohn (President of Earth)
 * T'Pau