After his previous Star Trek: Discovery outing — last summer’s The Enterprise War — explored what happened to one major set of characters before they were introduced in Discovery’s second season, author John Jackson Miller returns with Die Standing, a story which looks back at the origin of former Terran Emperor Philippa Georgiou’s relationship with Section 31.
Before her return to the show in Season 2’s “Point of Light,” then already indoctrinated into Section 31’s world, we’ve only seen a brief glimpse of her introduction to the clandestine organization’s shadowy world, by way of a deleted scene from Discovery Season 1.
Miller picks up that short scene — which also features the debut of actor Alan Van Sprang’s character Leland — and runs with it, telling an enjoyable adventure story that focuses primarily on Mirror Georgiou (with some moments of ‘prime’ Georgiou along the way), introducing some interesting new aliens and enhancing some surprising characters from Star Trek episodes of yore.
Die Standing has a big scale, but it’s ultimately a character piece for one woman: Terran refugee Philippa Georgiou, now cast aside and left to fend for herself in a strange and unfamiliar universe.
The extent to which Miller’s story works for you is likely to align closely with your opinion of the Georgiou character — one that remains irredeemable for many fans. On Discovery, the writers have attempted rehabilitate the character over the course of Season 2, transition the character from a monstrous dictator who literally eats people to a more nuanced ally, albeit one with unclear intentions.
Miller does an admirable job of working to reconcile the Terran Emperor’s former ways with the woman who joined Discovery’s fight against Control in Season 2, but is probably not going to change your mind about the character too much, if you haven’t yet come around to accepting her role in the show.
Despite all that, however, the characterization of Georgiou is spot on. You can hear Michelle Yeoh’s delicious performance as the once-powerful emperor leap off the page, and the character as presented in Die Standing feels very true to her on-screen portrayal. Miller also has fun being inside Georgiou’s head, giving us additional looks and insights into what life is like in the Mirror Universe and how it differs from our own.
Like The Enterprise War before it, the best part of Die Standing is how Miller weaves together interesting new concepts with familiar characters and ideas from the Star Trek canon. His novels are never total retreads of existing material, but they also go deeper into the existing franchise canon than just the occasional hat tip or nod to supplement an original story.
As with the two versions of Philippa Georgiou, Die Standing is full of ideas and characters that mirror each other or subvert your expectations. The original race introduced in the novel — or trio of races, depending on your interpretation — The Troika, are twisted reflection of the Federation, representing an exploitative marriage of convenience more than a fulfilling alliance of mutual cooperation.
In addition to the action and adventure, there’s a mystery subplot that lies underneath the novel: who are these mysterious aliens, and how are they related to the mysterious deaths of the crew of an Orion trading vessel discovered by then-Lieutenant Phillipa Georgiou?
And one of the novel’s supporting characters, perhaps its most surprising inclusion, is all about subverting expectations. Of all the characters in all of Star Trek that he could have played with, Miller chooses to re-introduce Finnegan – yes, that Finnegan, James Kirk’s former Academy rival — originally seen in the classic episode “Shore Leave.”
Miller significantly expands the character from the one-note bully seen in that episode, gives him depth, and also provides us a look at Finnegan’s Mirror Universe counterpart from Georgiou’s perspective. You won’t hate Finnegan so much after reading this novel, which is really saying something, given how odious the depiction of the character is in “Shore Leave.”
And to round out the main trio of characters in the book, Georgiou and Finnegan are joined by Emony Dax — the third Dax host — and former champion gymnast. Like the extended time the Star Trek: Enterprise novel series spent with Emony’s predecessor Tobin Dax, it’s always fun to “meet” one of the Trill’s historical hosts, and Miller does a good job of shading the character with some of the traits we later saw in Jadzia and Ezri in Deep Space Nine.
In addition to pulling in Original Series and Deep Space Nine characters, as expected from a book focused on Section 31, we also spend time with Admiral Cornwell and S31 agent Leland, both taking featured roles in the Die Standing story.
Cornwell’s scenes are great, but Miller leans into the idea — hinted at in Discovery — that Leland is not really all that good at his job. Repeatedly throughout the novel other characters out-think him, leaving what we are to presume is Section 31’s top agent one step behind the curve the entire time.
The main villain of Die Standing is a tie-in to a classic Trek episode. It’s great to get more information about an classic, mysterious alien, but this book does continue a Discovery tradition: is giving its characters much more information than Captain Kirk’s crew gets a decade down the timeline. Die Standing uses the Star Trek canon to great effect, but the disappointing byproduct is that it is another case of a different set of characters solving a mystery before Kirk and Spock do later in the timeline.
Overall, Die Standing is another enjoyable addition to the line of Star Trek: Discovery novels, expanding on what is seen on-screen to give the characters and events of the show greater depth and clarity. Given the main character of this novel is a polarizing one, reactions to the book are likely to match them.
But if Michelle Yeoh’s portrayal of Philippa Georgiou has even made you smile – even if you find yourself feeling conflicted about rooting for a character with such a despicable past – you’ll find a lot to enjoy here.