All Things Star Trek

[CivCube]

You've been missing out on more than 40 years' worth of stories! And that's just the pro stuff. There are over 26,000 Star Trek stories on fanfiction.net alone (not including the crossovers), plus tens of thousands of stories on other sites, not to mention what's been published in the print 'zines over the past nearly-50 years (the first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia, was first published when the show was still on the air in the late '60s).

I certainly don't have every Star Trek novel, but I have most of them. The ones I'm missing are mostly from the last 15 years or so, since there was a time when I couldn't even afford second-hand books. I'm catching up now, and replacing some that have become damaged over the years. There are a few I've decided not to buy, at least not new (not going to put any extra money in the pockets of a couple of particular pro writers who turned out to be jerks over on TrekBBS).

The only Star Trek series that doesn't have a decent amount of pro fiction to go along with the episodes is the Animated Series. But Alan Dean Foster adapted all of them to short story/novel format in his excellent "Star Trek Log" series. The first 6 books are prose adaptations of 3 episodes per book, while the last 4 are episodes expanded to novel length. Naturally that means Foster added a lot of original material to them, which makes them almost like an original novel. I highly recommend them.

Depending on your series preferences, I can also make recommendations for online fan fiction, as there are some really excellent fan writers whose work is on par with, or better than, some of the pro authors.

My bad! I was talking about Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens. I've read a few Star Trek books in my time--I remember reading part of the Spock trilogy (?), Kahless, and a Voyager anthology way back in the day. I was more interested in the behind-the-scenes books at the time and how Gene Roddenberry ran TOS and TNG. Strange, I'm still interested in showrunning...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Serutan: I watched the whole thing. What a hoot! This is the sort of project my dad would have loved trying, if he had someone to help with the electronic stuff.


@CivCube: Ah, my misunderstanding. Sorry, but I do get rather enthusiastic about this sort of thing.

Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens wrote some of the very best Star Trek novels. I don't think I ever found one of theirs I didn't enjoy.

There's nothing at all strange about being interested in behind-the-scenes stuff. I was fascinated by The World of Star Trek (the Stephen G. Whitfield book), and can honestly say that book changed my life.

If not for The World of Star Trek, I never would have gone into theatre work. I found all the stuff about the props-making really interesting, and dreamed of someday being able to do that kind of creative stuff. Well, Red Deer is not exactly brimming with TV or movie productions, but what we did have back then was live theatre. Specifically, live musical theatre. So when I had a chance to work backstage on the properties crew for Central Alberta Theatre's production of "Kiss Me Kate" (a musical about a group of actors putting on a production of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"), I jumped at it. That set me on a course of theatre work that lasted many years. I've worked on the props crew, stage crew, costume crew, front-of-house crew... and even did a tiny bit of acting and singing (didn't really care for that part, but they wanted the techies in the scene as well), and it was quite a slice of life. I did put little Star Trek touches on some things - stuff the cast could see but the audience couldn't, and that gave them the occasional chuckle.

 

[Smellincoffee]

@Serutan: I watched the whole thing. What a hoot! This is the sort of project my dad would have loved trying, if he had someone to help with the electronic stuff.


@CivCube: Ah, my misunderstanding. Sorry, but I do get rather enthusiastic about this sort of thing.

Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens wrote some of the very best Star Trek novels. I don't think I ever found one of theirs I didn't enjoy.

They did the DS9 Trilogy, Millennium, as I recall. Utterly magnificent. The characters' voices are so perfect. I keep meaning to read Federation but have never gotten through it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Instead of First Contact, they should have just adapted Federation into movie form. It's got Zephram Cochrane (not a drunken buffoon!), Kirk, Picard, WWIII, and so much more.

 

[Ajidica]

Instead of First Contact, they should have just adapted Federation into movie form. It's got Zephram Cochrane (not a drunken buffoon!), Kirk, Picard, WWIII, and so much more.

I liked James Cromwell as Cochrane, and his brief interactions with Troi-as-drunk-party-girl added some much needed levity to the film.
(Although I agree Troi was underserved in the film).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I liked James Cromwell as Cochrane, and his brief interactions with Troi-as-drunk-party-girl added some much needed levity to the film.
(Although I agree Troi was underserved in the film).

Well, obviously we're in disagreement on this. I thought Cromwell's performance and the way his character was written were both travesties. There was just no dignity to Zephram Cochrane in that movie.

Someone at TrekBBS made the point that Cochrane, as written in that movie, was actually a metaphor for Gene Roddenberry himself - someone very ordinary who had a big dream of accomplishing something that would lead to wealth, and somewhere along the line it got away from him and he became some larger-than-life character whose real self was at least in part greatly exaggerated. The hero worship exhibited by Geordi and Reg were likened to how some Star Trek fans regard Roddenberry... as a heroic being who is seen as a not-quite ordinary human credited with greater wisdom than he actually possessed.

As for the other characters... Deanna was a joke, and not a terribly funny one. The only decent parts of that movie involved Lily and Picard, with an honorable mention to the EMH.

 

[Ajidica]

Well, obviously we're in disagreement on this. I thought Cromwell's performance and the way his character was written were both travesties. There was just no dignity to Zephram Cochrane in that movie.

Why should Cochrane have 'dignity'? One of the things I thought the movie did well was at least attempting to explore the difference between the actual person of Cochrane and how he was remembered centuries later. There isn't a rule that visionary scientists that change society forever have to be paragons of dignity and foresight. In a world seemingly populated by super-perfect people, Cochrane came off as fundamentally human; warts and all. To me, the way he was written showed that despite human failures, we still can do great things and make a better future.
Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
(I mean, to this day I still insist that the anime series Attack on Titan is a thinly veiled allegory in favor of Japanese militarism and rearmament.)

As for the other characters... Deanna was a joke, and not a terribly funny one. The only decent parts of that movie involved Lily and Picard, with an honorable mention to the EMH.

Worf had some good lines, but yeah, a lot of characters had their lines reduced. I didn't find that necessarily a bad thing. It allowed the plot to keep moving forward. The writers knew the three big characters of TNG were Picard, Data, and Worf. It makes sense the writers would focus on those characters. There simply wasn't enough time in the movie to give all the characters the time they deserved.
(Even in the show, characters would frequently get sidelined for entire episodes.)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Why shouldn't Cochrane have dignity? He was a reasonably dignified man in the TOS episode where we first met him (Metamorphosis). In that episode he stated that he wanted a quiet retirement, and then ended up on that planet with the Companion.

I don't expect that physicists are all paragons of dignity and wisdom. But I also don't expect them to be drunken buffoons. If Riker hadn't come along, would Cochrane have been sober enough to make his flight? This whole situation is one of those "destiny paradox" things that occur in some kinds of time travel stories, and Star Trek has relied far too much on those - "it happened this way because it was meant to happen, and we were always a part of this history."

As far as I'm concerned, that movie depicts an alternate universe.


As RL time goes on, I find myself liking TNG less and less. It's got nothing to do with trivial things like special effects (which would be a sacrilegious thing to say in some Star Trek circles). I don't like the whole attitude of that series, the "we're so perfect and evolved and better than everyone else" smugness.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

He was more of a test pilot than a physicist...and test pilots generally are drunken buffoons when they aren't in a plane.

 

[warpus]

I'm neutral/split on Cochrane and I liked First Contact overall, but my main cringe in the movie was when the Vulcans landed. Maybe it's just me, but that wasn't a worthy first contact in my eyes. I'm not sure what would have done it for me, but it just seemed so silly and wooden.

Back to Cochrane, the way he was portrayed in the movie, it didn't seem that he would have been able to put together the first warp engine, or whatever. That seemed like a huge reach. Maybe I'm not remembering properly what his achievement was? Was he really just a test pilot? I thought he was the engineer who put together the thing as well. A nerd/geek type of character would have worked much better, but then I get that they were trying to push a "Look, this guy is not who you expect! How wacky!" type of plot device.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm neutral/split on Cochrane and I liked First Contact overall, but my main cringe in the movie was when the Vulcans landed. Maybe it's just me, but that wasn't a worthy first contact in my eyes. I'm not sure what would have done it for me, but it just seemed so silly and wooden.

Back to Cochrane, the way he was portrayed in the movie, it didn't seem that he would have been able to put together the first warp engine, or whatever. That seemed like a huge reach. Maybe I'm not remembering properly what his achievement was? Was he really just a test pilot? I thought he was the engineer who put together the thing as well. A nerd/geek type of character would have worked much better, but then I get that they were trying to push a "Look, this guy is not who you expect! How wacky!" type of plot device.

I sort of took it as the chick engineer, forgotten by history, was the real brains behind it while the dashing but drunken test pilot of course winds up with the credit.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, he was certainly drunk, but not in the slightest bit "dashing."

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, he was certainly drunk, but not in the slightest bit "dashing."

He would no doubt disagree. Drunk test pilots always think they are dashing.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The latest episode from Star Trek Continues is now available to the public: The White Iris.

Since the STC people don't allow embedding elsewhere, it's available either on YouTube (above) or on their own site: http://startrekcontinues.com/episodes.html. If you choose this site you can also watch the blooper reel, which has some good stuff.

I've seen the episode, but will refrain from commenting until someone else sees it and posts. I've already posted my opinions elsewhere, where I wasn't the first commenter (don't want to spoil it for anyone, or influence opinions until others have had a chance to see it).

The one thing I will say (since it hasn't been a secret in months) is that Colin Baker, who played the Sixth Doctor in Doctor Who, is in this episode. No, he doesn't play the Doctor.

 

[Olson]

Why shouldn't Cochrane have dignity? He was a reasonably dignified man in the TOS episode where we first met him (Metamorphosis). In that episode he stated that he wanted a quiet retirement, and then ended up on that planet with the Companion.

I don't expect that physicists are all paragons of dignity and wisdom. But I also don't expect them to be drunken buffoons. If Riker hadn't come along, would Cochrane have been sober enough to make his flight? This whole situation is one of those "destiny paradox" things that occur in some kinds of time travel stories, and Star Trek has relied far too much on those - "it happened this way because it was meant to happen, and we were always a part of this history."

In ST-TOS, Cochrane was much older; also, the TOS writers probably weren't thinking of any backstory beyond what was needed for the ST-TOS episode, "Metamorphosis".

However, I don't think James Cromwell (whom I like) would have been my choice for Cochrane. A young Bruce Willis type would be more akin to Glenn Corbett (while roughing up Corbett's soft-spoken Cochrane).

First Contact failed re: the Borg attack, which should have then changed the timeline so that humans would know the Borg exist since "first contact" if, what Riker said is true (that first contact never happens...happened...without an accompanying Borg attack).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In ST-TOS, Cochrane was much older; also, the TOS writers probably weren't thinking of any backstory beyond what was needed for the ST-TOS episode, "Metamorphosis".

However, I don't think James Cromwell (whom I like) would have been my choice for Cochrane. A young Bruce Willis type would be more akin to Glenn Corbett (while roughing up Corbett's soft-spoken Cochrane).

First Contact failed re: the Borg attack, which should have then changed the timeline so that humans would know the Borg exist since "first contact" if, what Riker said is true (that first contact never happens...happened...without an accompanying Borg attack).

I can't say I have perfect recall of First Contact, but how widespread was the knowledge of the Borg attack? It certainly didn't look like the history of the period was going to be explicitly detailed as if by a recording device. It didn't strike me at the time that there was a significant problem with the whole involvement by people from the future, Borg or otherwise, being forgotten.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This is something that's been endlessly debated on Star Trek forums, and the only conclusions I can come to is that first, just because that version of first contact seemed to go well, it doesn't mean that Earth went from scrambling for survival to the rosy future we're used to seeing in TOS just overnight. There was enough time for events to become blurred in peoples' memories and even somewhat embellished by people who ended up in government - on both sides (human and Vulcan, if you believe in the really obnoxious Vulcans we saw in some Enterprise episodes - one of the reasons I hated what little of that series I watched).

Secondly... any serious discrepancies were likely cleaned up by the Department of Temporal Investigations.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I've seen speculation that Enterprise was, itself, in a new post-First Contact continuity. Which would actually fit surprisingly well and explain a number of continuity problems...

 

[EgonSpengler]

iirc, in the episode of Enterprise with the Borg, Archer mentions Cochrane's speech about aliens from the future that everyone blew off as just a story. I think if you watch Star Trek at all, you obviously have the mental agility to fill in or jump over some gaps, and can deal a little hand-waving/'yada yada' by the writers. If you didn't, you would just go insane and smash your television.

 

[Ajidica]

There was enough time for events to become blurred in peoples' memories and even somewhat embellished by people who ended up in government - on both sides (human and Vulcan, if you believe in the really obnoxious Vulcans we saw in some Enterprise episodes - one of the reasons I hated what little of that series I watched).

It seems like we disagree over just about every aspect of Star Trek .
I actually liked the obnoxious Vulcans, at least in theory. It made sense why they would be obnoxious: the Vulcans had been in space for hundreds of years, and suddenly every one of their rules and expectations are being challenged by a bunch of upstarts who had barely recovered from irradiating half the planet.
"No, don't go investigate the black hole; because without Plot Magic your ship will get trapped."

Of course, the writers generally messed it up but that characterizes most of ENT.