Not a Lore (Data’s ‘brother,’) question, but a lowercase l lore question.
I know TOS backwards, forwards, and sideways. But I’m only passing familiar with the remainder of the ST canon, so pardon me in advance, please, if this is an “everyone knows,” deal.
In the TOS episode The Doomsday Machine, the Enterprise encounters another Federation starship that was crippled in an encounter with a planet-destroying automated behemoth. The crew theorizes that the device was built by a long-ago space-faring race in an effort to strike a final post-mortem blow at an enemy.
My question: I have heard people say in passing that this storyline is revisited in TNG, or maybe DS9, where Guinan reveals her people built the device and the Borg were the enemy at which it was aimed.
Only in the “Novelverse”. The TNG novel “Vendetta” by Peter David reveals that the TOS Doomsday machine was only a prototype. It’s “big brother” appears in that novel, not built by Guinan’s people but “commandeered” by one of them. There is also a subplot with Geordi trying to rehabilitate a former drone, very prescient of the Seven of Nine character. Been ages since I read the book, so apologies if I got anything wrong.
Excellent novel, by the way. One of Peter’s best. Of course, the novels aren’t canon in most respects, although Sulu’s first name of Hikaru did come from a novel - The Entropy Effect by Vonda McIntire.
And. . . from 2009, an earlier question on the subject. (Doesn’t change the answer, but Sir Rhosis gives some frightening plot points on another story.
