Star Trek Lore Question

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.

Anyway, blah blah blah Commodore Decker, shuttlecraft, explosion, transporter, fixed, bigger explosion, whew.

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.

Is there any truth in that?

That story was covered in Vendetta, a Star Trek TNG novel.

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.

[Of COURSE I get Borged…err, Ninjaed…]

Manson1972 only beat me because I wanted to provide a little detail.

Huh.

I was going to say it sounded like a followup to the episode I, Borg (which had some very similar plot beats).

But, checking, the episode actually came out a year after the book. (May of 1991 and 1992.)

I just linked to the book to make sure I beat you :slight_smile:

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.

So given that most people have only watched the shows and have not read any of the novels, the origin of the doomsday machine was never mentioned?

According to Spock, it came from “outside our galaxy,” based on the trajectory of the solar systems it was known to have destroyed.