Star Trek: A Time to.../YMMV

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Quite possibly where this began to really set in for the series. Everyone's miserable and tortured (sometimes literally) and if they're not dead by the end of these novels they probably wish they were.
• Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Picard and Pulaski in A Time For War/A Time For Peace.

Picard: You know, the last time Beverly took over Starfleet Medical, I was given a stubborn, acerbic, cantankerous replacement who I firmly believed was sent specifically to drive me mad. And I'd love to have her back, if she's interested.

• Moral Event Horizon: Prime Minister Kinchawn crosses it rather early, after he uses his illegally-acquired weapons (see: Government Conspiracy, above) to shoot down 10 Klingon ships in orbit of Tezwa, killing 6,000 warriors. If this didn't represent his crossing the line, his casual willingness to see millions of Tezwans killed in a Klingon counterstrike, including his own family, certainly does. What makes it worse is his apparent self-image as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, when he's really totally Drunk with Power. He sees his own children's death as merely a means to acquire more sympathy and thus more support and power, and seems to truly believe this is somehow reasonable.
• Unfortunate Implications: The outright statement that it is far better to drug a populace into a state of mild euphoria than allow them to experience hateful thoughts that lead to violence. It's essentially an Author Tract on why the government should be dumping valium in our water supply.