Star trek magazine fall 2016

TV SERIES NEWS

BEYOND REVIEWED

®

No: 58 Fall 2016 US $9.99 CAN $11.99

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DISPLAY UNTIL 12/5/2016

“

pace…”

That single word sends a tingle down your spine, doesn’t it? You can hear the voice, you know the next line, you’ve got that warm, fuzzy feeling in your stomach. It’s Star Trek time again.

I wasn’t even born when viewers first heard James T. Kirk speak those immortal lines. I’m not one of those who can claim “I was there!” Star Trek, for me, is something that always was and always had been. While I may be younger than Star Trek, I’m old enough to predate VCRs, to have lived at the mercy of TV schedulers, to have been forced to wait an entire week (can you believe it?!) between episodes!

How strange, then, to be excited about that weekly wait once more, as Star Trek gets set to make a triumphant return to TV in 2017! I can’t wait to wait!

Meanwhile, here in September 2016, we’re a half-century on from the first broadcast of “The Man Trap”, the atypical episode that launched a television legend, four (soon to be five) TV sequel series, 13 movies (in two universes), and countless collectibles. Star Trek is a bona fide phenomenon that has given hundreds of hours of pleasure to millions.

I wonder if Gene Roddenberry, even in that eureka moment when he devised his “Wagon Train to the Stars” concept, could ever have imagined its lasting impact?

How would I know? I’m a magazine editor, not a starship captain!

That’s why we’ve spoken to a myriad of Trek alumni, in the first part of a massive, all-star series that seeks to define just why the show means so much to so many. This special celebratory issue also features exclusive interviews with William Shatner, Nana Visitor, and Michael Dorn, visits Starfleet Academy, and finds out what makes a captain great. There’s something here for everyone – and that’s kind of what Star Trek is really all about!

Buckle up, and Engage…

S

HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN!

Christopher Cooper Editor

Email us at startrekmagazine@titanemail.com about anything Star Trek-related, or write to Star Trek Magazine, 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

EDITORIAL • Editor: Christopher Cooper • Senior Editor: Martin Eden • Designers: Amazing15 • Contributors: Katherine Bankson, Charles Gray and all at Star Trek Online, Bryan Cairns, Michael Clark, Chris Dows, Kyle C. Haight, K. Stoddard Hayes, Rich Matthews, Larry Nemecek, Ian Spelling, Bunny Summers, Adam Walker, and Toby Weidmann.

STAR TREK: THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE VOL #1, ISSUE #58 • Special Thanks: Bill Burke, Bryan Fuller (UK #185) • Bad Robot: J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Damon Lindelof, Published by Titan Magazines, a division of Titan David Baronoff Publishing Group Limited, 144 Southwark Street, London • CBS Consumer Products: SE1 0UP. TM ® & © 2016 CBS Studios Inc. © 2016 John Van Citters and Marian Cordry Paramount Pictures. STAR TREK and Related Marks are • Copyright Promotions Ltd.: Trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Anna Hatjoullis Titan Authorised User. CBS, the CBS Eye logo and related • Paramount Home Entertainment: marks are trademarks of CBS Broadcasting Inc. TM & © Kate Addy, Jiella Esmat, Liz Hadley and John Robson 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. For sale • Simon & Schuster US: Ed Schlesinger in the US, UK, Eire, Australia and New Zealand. Printed in the US by Quad/Graphics. ISSN 1357-3888 TMN 13433

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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CONTENTS REGULARS

6 STATUS REPORT

A round-up of the latest Star Trek news, including the new series.

76 TREKNOLOGY

Today’s Trek-inspired technology, and the history of escape pods.

THREE GREAT TREK GIVEAWAYS 25 WIN! 50 ARTISTS 59 WIN! STAR TREK JEWELRY OFFICIAL 2017 TREK CALENDARS 80 TRICORDER

IDW preview, Starfleet Academy Experience and Trek novels reviewed.

93 FISTFUL OF DATA

“IT’S UNTHINKABLE TO ME, TO CONCEIVE OF THE IDEA THAT SOMETHING ENTERTAINING WOULD LAST 50 YEARS.”

12 WILLIAM

SHATNER

Our resident Trexpert answers your canon conundrum queries.

97 STARSHIP TREKKERS

Going badly where no-one has gone before, in “Beyond Belief!”

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54 MICHAEL DORN

CONTENTS

egu ar

ewsstan

ition

20

FEATURES 20 STAR TREK BEYOND REVIEWED

Did the latest Star Trek movie really take us to new frontiers?

26 WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT... GENE

26

Our panel of Trek Talkers talk about the man who started it all.

32 STAR TREK ONLINE

Exclusive 50th anniversary fiction, from the creators of Star Trek Online.

40 THE BIG FIVE-OH: PART ONE

Our mission to discover what Star Trek means to the people who made it.

48 TIME’S ARROW

Revealing the MacGuffins that motivated the Star Trek movies.

60 STARFLEET’S FINEST: CAPTAINS

What does it take to fill the Big Chair?

68 OPERATION: RESTORATE

Follow the story of the Smithsonian Museum’s mission to restore the original Enterprise model.

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VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY New Crew, New Frontier… New Ship?

I

t’s official: Bryan Fuller’s new Trek vision will be set in the Prime Timeline, and will be called Star Trek: Discovery.

Fuller made the surprise announcement at the end of the San Diego Comic-Con Star Trek 50th anniversary panel (see next page), revealing the new show’s title and ship name in a brief teaser trailer.

“There are so many reasons why we settled on Discovery,” Fuller told startrek.com, following the unveiling, “But the chief one amongst them was that I couldn’t think of a more Star Trek-themed name for a ship than Discovery.”

The 13-episode series launches with its pilot episode on CBS in mid-January 2017, with further episodes being released weekly on CBS All Action, and internationally a day later on Netflix. Fuller has also confirmed the series will have an ongoing story arc, with each episode forming a “chapter” in that story.

Another short video showed early test footage of the Discovery itself, sparking fevered speculation amongst fans as to its unusual design – is it based on conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie’s decades-old design for a movie Enterprise (see photo)? Why is that back end so Klingon-like? Does the design have anything to do with the Vulcan IDIC symbol, representing “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”…?

We don’t know!

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

The U.S.S. Discovery, NCC-1031

Discovery launches in January 2017

During a press conference following the panel, Fuller and co-executive producer Heather Kadin admitted that the ship design, and even the music used, were very much early concepts, put together especially for the SDCC teaser reel.

“The concepts of the ship are totally what we’re going for, and they’ll be honed up until, I

Look familiar? The Vulcan IDIC

think, the day we deliver,” said Kadin, “We had three weeks to throw that together. We wanted to show fans. We’re super-excited by the score that this amazing composer, Fil Eisler, threw together as an audition, and he did an incredible job.”

As cameras get set to roll on the new series this month, we’ll bring you a full preview of the upcoming series in our next issue.

BY GEORGE! The Kelvin Timeline Continues fourth movie set in Star Trek’s Kelvin Timeline was announced by Paramount Pictures in the same weekend that Star Trek Beyond hit cinemas – with the additional news that Chris Hemsworth (Right) will return as George Kirk, the father of James T. Kirk, who seemingly perished in the first reel of J.J. Abram’s 2009 movie.

Paramount Pictures revealed that “In the next installment of the epic space adventure, Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk will cross paths with a

A

man he never had a chance to meet, but whose legacy has haunted him since the day he was born: his father.”

The movie, a Bad Robot and Skydance production, will be written by J.D. Payne and Patrick McCay, who were originally tapped to script what became Star Trek Beyond. The main cast from the previous three movies are expected to return, although a director and release date had not been confirmed at the time Star Trek Magazine went to press.

PANEL TO THE STARS Comic-Con Celebrates Trek’s 50th

O

n July 23rd, more than 6,500 fans gathered in Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center for the Comic-Con International Star Trek: Celebrating 50 Years panel, which paid tribute to Trek’s past and set the stage for its future.

Representing the past were William Shatner, Scott Bakula, Jeri Ryan, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner, while the panel was moderated by Bryan Fuller – creator/executive producer of the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery – who pointed Trek forward.

“Fifty years,” Fuller marveled, drawing parallels between Trek’s future vision and the problems the world faces today. “Fifty years of a promise of planet Earth uniting all of its citizens under one flag as a species, going out into the galaxy. Think about that. Think about what’s happening in America, and think about the promise

of Star Trek, and what we can all do to get there.”

Fuller engaged the Trek icons on a range of social and political subjects, in an often enlightening discussion. Discovery’s executive producer suggested Next Generation episode, “The Measure of a Man” was “all about human and individual rights,” that are currently “under attack” in the real world. Brent Spiner called the situation “disturbing,” arguing that “a lot of our politicians and our fellow citizens could take a page from Trek, and have a bit more respect for humanity, for all of us.”

Among other comments, Jeri Ryan acknowledged the irony of the Borg, who, “villains though they may be,” certainly were not “exclusionary.” Michael Dorn deemed it “an honor” to portray the first Klingon audiences got to know well. And Scott Bakula said, “What I like about science fiction is the nature of the optimism that

Star Trek Beyond scored a solid $59.6 Million dollars in ticket sales over its opening weekend, while in international markets the film grossed around $30 Million dollars.

The SDCC Trek panel: (Left to Right) Bryan Fuller, Scott Bakula, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, William Shatner, and Jeri Ryan

goes with the science and the fiction.”

There were laughs, too. Spiner delivered a spot-on imitation of Patrick Stewart. Shatner picked Tribbles as his favorite Trek species. Bakula lightened the mood further by mentioning that his favorite Trek technology was “the glow-in-thedark blue gel we’d rub on each other,” in Enterprise.

Fuller ended the hour with a flourish. First, he asked everyone to hold hands with the person next to them. “As we chart a path to the 23rd Century,” he said, “let’s make a promise to leave this room with love, and leave this room with hope, and leave this room taking responsibility to craft a path to the future that Gene Roddenberry imagined.”

He also requested a moment of silence for Leonard Nimoy, Anton Yelchin, and “for everyone who contributed to Star Trek in a magnificent way, and has moved on to the great beyond.”

Words: Ian Spelling STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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50 ARTISTS ON TOUR Trek Art Show Travels the World

CREW YOUR CONSOLES STO Beams Into Your Ready Room

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ell into its sixth year, and showing no signs of holding back, Star Trek Online takes a big step into a new frontier from September – and onto games consoles.

Launching simultaneously on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles, Star Trek Online’s bold new mission is to deliver the same high quality Star Trek experience to console gamers as it has for players of the PC edition. Featuring adaptations and improvements that take full advantage of the new platform’s power, the team at Cryptic have invested heavily in graphics enhancements for the game, adding new lighting technologies that significantly improve the games visuals. The new look for STO won’t be limited to the console versions, as the improvements will also be coming to the PC version of the game later this year.

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

pecially commissioned by CBS, the Star Trek: 50 Artists, 50 Years project made waves at San Diego Comic C i J l ith it collection of 2D and artists, celebrating n its 50th year.

“I’m overwhelmed w ncredibly positive respo ans that came out to visi lery in San Die rector of the e “It’s truly an a for fans, by fan wing on from it debut, the 50 ibition moved Vegas, and onto Canada, a takes up residence at New for Media from Septembe Next stop on its tour is Bi exhibition will be a major Trek Europe from October For those unfortunat catching this impressive e Titan Books are releasing

of all of the artworks in a large-format book.

Featuring interviews with each of the artists i l d d f d b W th f Kh

PIN POINT ACCU Trek Pins from FanSets Get Aug

B

adges, patches, and pins have long been a favorite collectible for Trek fans, but a new range coming up from FanSets promises something a little different.

Launching later this year, FanSets “Augmented Reality” (AR) pins are an innovative way to experience Star Trek.

Each AR pin will be associated with a 3-D image that can be viewed through a Smartphone and tablet app – and when certain pins are collected together, the app recreates a famous scene from Star Trek in glorious 3-D! The app will feature light, sound effects, and theme music, with accompanying battle sounds.

You can catch up with the guys from FanSets, and get a demonstration of their fun Trek tech at September’s Star Trek: Mission New York, and Destination Star Trek Europe in October.

A full range of regular pins are already available at FanSets official website, www.fansets.com

STATUS REPORT

THINGS TO DO DURING SHORE LEAVE EMP EXPLORES NEW WORLDS Trek Exhibition at Iconic Pop Culture Museum his summer, Seattle’s EMP Museum plays host to a special exhibition celebrating 50 years of Star Trek, exploring its enduring impact on culture, and how the series has inspired people to imagine, explore, and create.

The fully immersive exhibit features over 100 artifacts and props from the television series, spin-offs, and movies, including Kirk’s original command chair, and the Enterprise navigation console (on display for the first time to the public), costumes, and the 6-foot Enterprise-D filming model from The Next Generation.

Full details of Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds can be found at empmuseum.org

T TREK TO TICONDEROGA Original Sets Brought Back To Life ince July, fans have had the opportunity to visit a meticulously researched and designed recreation of the original Star Trek series sets, just as they were laid out on Stage 9 at Hollywood’s Desilu Studios (now Paramount Pictures).

Located in Ticonderoga, New York, and under license by CBS Consumer Products, the tour sets are based on a copy of the original studio blueprints sent to James Cawley – the super-fan behind the reproduction – by the show’s costume designer, William Ware Theiss.

Offering guided tours, photo opportunities, and a totally immersive experience, guests are able to step onto the soundstage and be transported directly back to 1966.

Find out more at startrektour.com

S

M-A-C BOLDLY GO WHERE NO COSMETICS HAVE GONE BEFORE Retail Trek Experience Goes Global et ready to apply some Trek-themed lip gloss, as cosmetics company MAC bring their new Star Trek collection to Europe, with an exhibit that hits the UK this September.

The innovative and hugely entertaining Trek/cosmetics crossover exhibit launched at San Diego Comic-Con, and will beam down to sites in France and Germany following its European debut in London. Search Twitter for #MACStarTrek to get the latest info.

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DESTINATION STAR TREK EUROPE One Month to Lift Off ickets are still available for Europe’s biggest Star Trek event in 2016, as Destination Star Trek Europe gets set to descend on Birmingham, UK from October 7th.

Featuring a one-night only performance of William Shatner’s oneman show, Shatners World, and numerous Star Trek guests, panels, and special events, the event aims to be Star Trek’s biggest 50th birthday party.

For ticketing and line-up information, head to destinationstartrek.com

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

9

ANTON YELCHIN

1989 TO 2016

orn in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), in the Soviet Union in 1989, Anton Viktorovich Yelchin moved to the United States with his family when he was barely six-months old.

By the age of 9 he was already finding success as an actor, with a guest role in ER, and as “Augie” in indie film A Man is Mostly Water.

Anton’s big break came in the 2001 movie, Hearts in Atlantis, in which Anton stole the show from renowned British actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and the actor went on to make numerous film and television appearances. However, it was his role as Pavel Chekov in Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond that brought him international fame, and turned a promising career into a blossoming one.

A bright light whose talent was yet to reach its fullest potential; Star Trek Magazine remembers Anton Yelchin.

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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The “Theme from Star Trek,” and iconic sound effects like the communicator beeping, warp drive, and more will also transport you back in time. Officially licensed by CBS Studios Inc., the Captain arrives wearing a replica of a Starfleetapproved uniform from the gold tunic sporting the insignia to his classic black boots. Standing 15 inches and poseable, he comes with communicator in hand for a command performance you won’t want to miss!

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TM & © 2015 CBS Studios Inc. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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As our collective Star Trek voyage reaches its 50th year, there was one voice above all others that Star Trek Magazine wanted for this special issue – and that voice belongs to William Shatner, who recorded his first Captain’s Log all those years ago...

Photos: Sprout/NBC, s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

T

he universe has a habit of introducing a magical synchronicity to even the most varied of lives. Take William Shatner, for example – one of the busiest, most active octogenarians you’ll ever have the pleasure of meeting. Having spent decades discovering strange new lifeforms and new civilizations as Star Trek’s Captain James T. Kirk, and exploring all kinds of subjects as a documentary film-maker, one of his latest projects is a reboot that has a coincidental connection with the show that made him a household name.

As the original Star Trek series was ending its run on US television in 1969, in Britain a new space series was just beginning – the cult BBC animated children’s classic, The Clangers.

“Isn’t that amazing? I didn’t know that,” reveals Shatner, who provides the US narration for the 2016 remake, “That’s quite wonderful.”

The Clangers are an alien race of small, pink, knitted aliens, who live on a grey planetoid somewhere in the depths of space, with their friends the Soup Dragon, a trio of Froglets, the Iron Chicken, and any number of whimsical, psychedelic, and magical visitors.

You might say it’s the animated equivalent of Shatner’s musical output from the same era.

The creator and animator of The Clangers, the late Oliver Postgate, narrated the original series with a distinctive British warmth, which ex-Monty Python star Michael Palin also brings as the voice of the revived show in the UK. Shatner, meanwhile, was determined to introduce something of himself to the US version.

“I hadn’t heard of The Clangers until they asked me to do it,” Shatner says, “I saw a couple of them, and my thought was, as wonderful as the show is, there was a sort of distance between the narrator and the story. I wanted to destroy that distance, and make it like I used to tell my kids stories, and many other children as the years have gone by. I gave myself the hurdle to become that one voice that that one child would hear, and make it as personal as I possibly could, so that the story became intimate, and I was warm and intimate as a storyteller, as a grandfather might be to this three-year-old child.”

To date, Shatner has recorded two to three seasons’ worth of episodes. “I’m not sure what the future holds,” he says, “But I certainly would love to do more.”

THE STRANGE NEW WORLDS OF WILLIAM SHATNER 12

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: WILLIAM SHATNER

“TO SEE MYSELF AS A YOUNG MAN IN STAR TREK, AND TO WATCH MYSELF SLOWLY AGE IN THE FILMS, AND TO LOOK AT MYSELF NOW – IT’S LIKE LOOKING AT A DORIAN GRAY PAINTING.”

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

13

(Left to right): Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelley (Bones), and William Shatner (Kirk) share a light-hearted moment on the set of the original series

TELLING STORIES The Clangers isn’t Shatner’s only connection to 0the United Kingdom in 2016, which also sees him perform his one-man show, Shatner’s World, at October’s Destination Star Trek Europe, for one night only.

“I started it in Australia,” Shatner says of the hit show’s gestation, “I changed it for Canada, and then when I was asked to go to Broadway, I rewrote the whole thing, and re-staged it. That’s what I will do in Birmingham, in October.”

Shatner’s World, which is about “love, death, motorcycles, and gorillas,” has been touring for several years, and Shatner has enjoyed refining his performance with every show – while ensuring he remains mindful of its technical aspects.

“I worked very hard on it, to open it for its best on Broadway,” explains Shatner, “There are a lot of visuals that work on a word cue, and I have to say that word or otherwise the gentlemen working the computers backstage won’t press the button. So, I must say that word. Those words are embedded in the stories. The show [is] very much what it was like in Broadway, except it’s nuanced differently. I’ve discovered where laughs are. I’ve discovered how to get a bigger laugh. I’ve discovered how to make a line more meaningful. I’ve discovered how to read the

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

“I’VE DISCOVERED HOW TO READ THE STORY, HOW TO MAKE THE STORY MORE EMPATHIC BECAUSE IT BECOMES PART OF ME.”

Kirk (Shatner) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on the Enterprise bridge

story, how to make the story more empathic because it becomes part of me, rather than me telling you. Interestingly enough, that’s part of the Clangers lesson, to be part of the story, rather than telling the story.”

With his one-man show, and numerous documentary films, would Shatner describe himself more as a storyteller these days, rather than a performer?

“Actors are storytellers, they just have to work in dialogue,” Shatner suggests, “The whole

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

entertainment industry is telling a story. How to tell that story? If it’s a movie, how to visualize that story? If it’s on stage, like my one-man show, what words evoke the best of that story? But everything that is entertaining is storytelling.

“The actor needs the audience to tell the actor how the material is working. If it’s a joke, you need to be able to tell the joke, and get the laugh. If you tell the joke and you don’t get a laugh, the joke’s not working. And if you think it’s funny, you need to work on the words, the presentation, the effect,

INTERVIEW: WILLIAM SHATNER

William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk

in order to get the laugh. Now, there are times when one or two people might laugh when you think something is funny, and you realize you’re there, you’ve got something funny, but they aren’t all getting it. And you have to figure out why they’re not getting it.”

Shatner uses an example from his one-man show that illustrates this process of refinement perfectly, and the importance of performing in front of a live audience. “I talk about another actor who forgot that he was on live television, and talked his way through a fight sequence,” Shatner elucidates, “On Broadway, I made him angry at the end of the story. He was angry. And there was no laugh. And I thought there should be a laugh there, but I didn’t get the laugh. Eventually, I discovered that it wasn’t anger that should be the primary emotion, it was resignation. He’d gone past anger and now was resigned to the fact that the audience was listening to him talk a fight. So with resignation, he said, ‘and then I did.’ And that got a laugh. Applause, actually. And all I did was color it differently. That’s the art of being this stage actor, and director I guess, to have that editor in your head, that is talked to by the audience. You don’t get that in television and movies. The audience is the director. The audience tells you all the time if the material, or the story, is working.”

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY Beyond the personal anecdotes and reflections that have fed into his one-man show, Shatner seems to have a thirst for discovery and learning. Star Trek fans will be familiar with his franchiserelated documentary films, including The Captains, Chaos on the Bridge – the warts-and-all tale of the birth of The Next Generation – and his exploration of Trek fandom, Get A Life. Again it’s Shatner’s fascination with storytelling that drives him.

“There’s always something to discover, but perhaps, more to the point, it’s the discovery of what the story is in a documentary,” the actorturned-filmmaker ponders, “You start talking to somebody and they tell you a story, and that’s interesting, and then the next person has a different color on what happened, and suddenly you’re onto a detective story, a detective search, because you’ve now discovered what the story is.

Usually, I find what the story is by the third day of making a documentary. I wake up – it’s happened, several times! - I wake up on the morning of the third day and I say, ‘Oh, now I know what my story is!’ and that’s the line to pursue. It’s too late for the early interviews, so I’ve learned then that STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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KEEPING

BUSY

Photo: Tinseltown / Shutterstock.com

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illiam Shatner likes to keep himself occupied, and has a host of new projects seeing the light of day in the latter half of 2016.

“I’ve got the one-man show that I tour every so often,” Shatner reminds us, plus “a new series that I’ve done that’ll be coming out on NBC, after the Olympics, called Better Late Than Never, which I do with Henry Winkler, George Forman, and Terry Bradshaw. The four of us went to Asia some time ago, and had a lot of peaceful experiences. We experienced a lot of things differently, and it’s on film and apparently it’s very funny.”

Shatner also has a new series of science-fiction novels coming up, co-written with author Jeff Rovin, called Zero-G, which he’s characteristically excited about.

“I have another book coming out. It’s a story of the FBI in space,” Shatner reveals, “Fifty years from now there’ll be a lot of people in space, and they’ll need law and order, and the FBI – the ‘G-Men’ – go out into space in zero-gravity.”

With the first of this two-book series out in October, and other projects on the horizon, Shatner shows no signs of slowing down – and has no intention of doing so.

“Well, I’m healthy. I’m in glorious health. So that’s like the key element of everything,” he says. “You can’t feel love and you can’t work if you’re sick, and I’m not, so that’s a lot of good luck, and perhaps some good management. But mostly good luck.”

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

First contact – with his own son! Kirk (Shatner) and David Marcus (Merritt Butrick), in The Wrath of Khan

you’ve got to cover a number of bases to be sure that you have the one point that you may use in the story.”

A story that Shatner felt compelled to relate was of his long friendship with Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy, who died in early 2015. The book that tells that story, Leonard, is both a touching tribute to Nimoy, and an emotional reflection on the importance of human relationships.

“I have, over the course of my life, discovered that when you lose somebody that you love, that you care deeply for, and you’ve shared a lot of experiences with, you no longer have that person to validate the experience,” says Shatner of the

loss. “If you say, ‘Remember you wore that green hat,’ they said, ‘No, it was blue.’ ‘Oh, that’s right, it was blue!’ You no longer can confirm the experience. And so you begin to lose the memory, and finally it’s like, ‘Did I ever wear a hat?’ I found that happening with Leonard. And I started to write down the experiences before I could forget them, and because there was nobody else there to validate them. So, I did the best I could at remembering the laughs and the tears that we had together. But we had so much in common, with careers, and age, and background, and professions, and family. We had so much in common, and we were so often in each other’s company, that this friendship grew. And I found it important to me to write down what those experiences were, to remember this lovely man that I knew for 50 years.”

BEING JAMES T. KIRK For all its strengths, the original Star Trek was very much a product of episodic 1960s television.

While the series would explore big philosophical ideas in a way no other show could, the central characters were never really changed by their experiences, simply moving on to next week’s adventure. That all changed when the actors reprised their roles for the six-movie series that followed, a

The Undiscovered Country

“IT’S UNTHINKABLE TO ME, TO CONCEIVE OF THE IDEA THAT SOMETHING WOULD LAST 50 YEARS, SOMETHING ENTERTAINING WOULD LAST 50 YEARS.” decade later. There was a through-line, a progression that made for more mature, characterdriven drama. It was a deeper acting experience for the cast, and Shatner is appreciative of the chance it gave him to explore his character further.

“I loved it. I loved the idea,” he enthuses.

“Paramount was of two minds every time they did a film, so instead of holding onto sets and costumes and stuff like that, they burned the sets after every film, thinking that was the last film! But it continued on through six or seven of them, and as every two years that we would do one, 10 or 12 years would pass by. You age some, and we played into that. I loved it. I was willing to continue ageing if the audience would come to see it.”

When the time came to pass the movie torch onto The Next Generation cast, Shatner was given an even greater chance to take control of Kirk’s destiny, in the form of a series of novels.

“They allowed me to write books about Captain Kirk, my own version of [an] ageing Captain Kirk,” says Shatner, “and I used my life, so that he got married, and he lost his wife, and he had a child. These various things that were happening in my life happened to Captain Kirk. So, in a way, my Star Trek books are autobiographical, to a degree, and I enjoyed them. I would have

Captains Kirk (Shatner) and Picard (Patrick Stewart) on the Generations set

loved to have made movies of Captain Kirk, with all the derring-do, and still have him age and be a hero that is losing his step, as all athletes lose as they pass 30, and then 40, and how do you feel about that? Different emotional growths that heroes should have, even mythical heroes like Captain Kirk.”

FIFTY YEARS You may well be reading this interview on September 8th, 2016 – 50 years to the day after the first episode of Star Trek aired on the NBC network in the USA. It’s a milestone that William Shatner doesn’t take lightly.

“It’s unthinkable to me, to conceive of the idea that something would last 50 years, something entertaining would last 50 years.

Buildings don’t last 50 years here [in the US].

Imagine a series like Star Trek having a 50th anniversary? It is unimaginable. It is a phenomenon,” asserts Shatner, “And those of us who are part of it are blessed beyond any degree. We are part of a unique showbiz happening. I’m very much aware of it, and very appreciative of it.”

For Shatner, the passing of those 50 years is relatable in a unique and very personal way. “To

see myself as a young man in Star Trek, and to watch myself slowly age in the films, and to look at myself now – it’s like looking at a Dorian Gray painting! There I am, youthful; and there I am, ageing; and it’s all on film, for everybody to see,” the star reflects, “It’s both thrilling to know that’s me and all parts of me, and it’s also disheartening to see how age affects you. Very few entertainers have lived their lives on camera. I first appeared on film as a teenager in Montreal, and I’m now in my eighties, appearing on film. That’s a long, long time. Physically, emotionally, socially. Even my cells have changed, every seven years, so that’s ten versions of my cellular body having changed.

That’s enormous! People don’t live that long, let alone film that long. It’s frightening, and energizing.”

It’s an energy that Shatner thrives on, and channels into all his projects – it also inspires his many fans across the world.

“I’m in the fullness of my skills,” says Shatner, with the enthusiasm and knowing humor that is his trademark, “I’m a better actor, a better person, a better lover, a better friend, now than I’ve ever been. And loving it! Not just enjoying it. Glorying in it.”

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REVIEWED

By Christopher Cooper

Obviously, this feature will contain spoilers for Star Trek Beyond (especially the synopsis boxout), so if you somehow haven’t seen the film yet, perhaps save it for a rainy day!

M Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Bones (Karl Urban)

y Mom and I emerged from the local multiplex, breathless and blinking, into the bright July sunshine. “That was proper, old-fashioned Star Trek!” she enthused, clearly delighted, if a little frazzled by the breakneck pace of Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond. I’m pretty sure I saw her punch the air as she said it, which isn’t like her at all.

Judging by the response of the rest of the audience that was streaming out of the cinema around us, and the smile on my own face, we all felt the same way. We’d enjoyed the shared experience of watching

STAR TREK BEYOND REVIEW

It’s long been held that odd-numbered Star Trek films aren’t necessarily the finest exemplars of the franchise. As the 13th Trek movie overall, and the third in the Kelvin Timeline sequence, did Star Trek Beyond finally kick that urban myth firmly into touch?

Kirk (Chris Pine) hatches a desperate plan to save his crew

a good, fun Star Trek movie together, with plenty to keep both regular movie-goers and we Trek oldtimers happy – but that’s not how I felt after seeing it for the first time. Let me explain.

Abusing my position as editor of this magazine, I’d scored a seat at the London premiere of Beyond a few weeks earlier. It was a typical, British summer’s day – heavy rain interrupted by occasional bursts of sunlight. On the white (and very damp) “red” carpet, the only star I’d glimpsed was the back of Idris Elba’s head, as he’d signed

autographs for some very patient fans. As the assembled press didn’t seem to want to speak to me (I know! Don’t they know who I am?), I made my way inside Leicester Square’s Empire cinema, found my seat up in the gods, and settled down in anticipation. Or was it nervousness?

The audience, whoever they were, had their glad-rags on. Smart suits, short skirts, a dizzying array of perfumes – this was an event; this was special; excitement filled the air – but were these people more excited about seeing the

latest Star Trek, or by the glamor of attending a movie premiere?

Was I excited? All I could feel was the weight of my reviewer’s hat, pressing heavily upon my shoulders. If there’s one thing that’s bound to distance you from a movie, it’s knowing you have to write about it. I worried that I wouldn’t enjoy it, that I’d spend the next two hours with a critical demon whispering bad thoughts in my ear, akin to Krall’s bitter recriminations against the Federation.

I felt… alone.

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Kirk (Chris Pine) in his favorite seat, aboard the U.S.S. Franklin

STAR TREK BEYOND • Director: Justin Lin • Written by: Simon Pegg and Doug Jung n the Federation’s newest starbase, U.S.S. Yorktown, shore leave is cut short for the Enterprise crew when an escape pod is recovered near an impenetrable nebula. The pod’s occupant, an alien named Kalara, begs for help to recover her crew, stranded deep inside the nebula on the planet Altamid.

However, no sooner has the Enteprise crossed through the nebula than it is ambushed by a swarm of alien ships. Krall, the commander of the swarm, is hunting for an ancient weapon he knows to be carried aboard the Enterprise, but Kirk has hidden it. As the ship is torn apart by the swarm, the crew abandon ship – only to be captured by Krall’s forces. The saucer section crashes onto the planet below.

Kirk, Chekov, and Kalara return to the downed Enterprise, where it is revealed that Kalara was working for Krall all along – the whole mission was a trap. Kalara is killed as Kirk and Chekov escape.

Bones and Spock have made it safely to the planet, but Spock is wounded and in urgent need of medical aid. Meanwhile,

O

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Scotty meets Jaylah, an outsider who has been trapped on Altamid for some years.

Sulu and Uhura escape from Krall’s cells, but are recaptured after discovering that the alien has been monitoring Starfleet communications, and intends to attack Yorktown – and then the Federation – with the alien weapon he has recovered from one of the Enterprise crew.

Kirk and Chekov are reunited with Scotty, and Jaylah shows them her “house,” where she has been hiding out – it’s the U.S.S. Franklin, a Federation ship that mysteriously went missing a century before. Scotty beams Spock and Bones to safety, and they hatch a plan to rescue the remaining crew from Krall’s base.

When Krall departs with his drone fleet to attack Yorktown, the Enterprise crew take off in pursuit aboard the repaired Franklin.

The deadly chase to stop Krall ends with a devastating discovery – Krall was once Balthazar Edison, the Franklin’s captain and a former soldier who fought against the Xindi and the Romulans. Edison has extended his life using alien technology, transforming into Krall while plotting revenge against the Federation that he believes abandoned him.

Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Kirk (Chris Pine) search for answers

Beyond pressed all the right buttons for me during that first viewing, don’t get me wrong, but seeing the movie again – crucially with my Mom and a bunch of other Star Trek fans, old and new, who’d packed out a local cinema on the movie’s opening weekend – I appreciated it so much more.

My enjoyment fed off the response of those around me, and perhaps that’s a reflection of the underlying message of Beyond, and the big “Star Trek” idea at its heart – that in unity there is strength.

BEYOND INSURRECTION

While Star Trek: Insurrection made a movie out of what could have easily been a Next Generation TV script (with a TV budget to match), Star Trek Beyond looks every bit the modern effects-laden blockbuster, while being arguably the closest a Trek movie has ever come to accurately adapting the original 1960s source material for the big screen.

J.J. Abrams’ 2009 movie captured the gung-ho spirit of the original, aided in no small part by the perfectly cast young actors filling its iconic roles, but it was clearly more popcorn movie than a Roddenberry-esque musing on the human condition. Later, Into Darkness came fully-loaded

STAR TREK BEYOND REVIEW

Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) captured by Krall

In an early scene, extraordinarily reminiscent of Captain Pike’s famously melancholic exchange with Dr. Boyce in the first Star Trek pilot episode, “The Cage,” we find Kirk in reflective mood, questioning his future in Starfleet. His arc is set up in a few lines, but it’s through Chris Pine’s most accomplished performance yet as Kirk that we follow that story to its inevitable conclusion. As Bones (Karl Urban) tells Spock in another scene, “There’s no need to say it.”

Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Jaylah (Sophia Boutella) struggle to protect Yorktown from Krall's evil plan

AS MANY REVIEWERS AND FANS QUICKLY POINTED OUT, BEYOND GENUINELY FEELS LIKE AN EPISODE FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES. with allegory and “Big Ideas,” but earned itself a critical backlash thanks to its self-referential riffing on previous Star Trek storylines. As many reviewers and fans quickly pointed out, Beyond genuinely feels like an episode from the original series, albeit layered with whizz-bang effects and the frenetic cinematography familiar to fans of Justin Lin’s turbo-charged pictures. It’s a combination of storytelling techniques that, perhaps surprisingly, works extremely well, and proves you should never pre-judge a finished movie on the basis of a teaser trailer…

Structurally, Beyond hits all the beats required of the TV incarnation: a central mystery for the crew to unravel, drop-kicking Kirk fight scenes, Spock and McCoy’s razor-sharp retorts, and a shock reveal that puts events into perspective. And it’s funny too. Really funny.

Simon Pegg and Doug Jung’s appreciation and understanding of what makes Star Trek tick is more than evident, as is their diligence in crafting a script that is straightforward, finelytuned, and way more watertight than a Tribble with magic blood.

This is particularly impressive given the relatively short development time the writers had

to pull their stor to ethe and indicative of the attention th refining sce and moves t say that Bey and foremo villainy pos threat to the and reasoni to be selfish ultimately r cold bonker he got there extended st a man, no w his career o far removed confidence i hero reacts find themse Equally themes that audience to the need to counting oc hey, this is S

ABSENT FRIENDS

Given that there are subtle (and some less so) nods to Trek’s 50th anniversary throughout, Beyond deftly fulfils Paramount Pictures’ edict that this third movie be less “Star Trekky,” by not allowing itself to get bogged down in the continuity issues that provided both the narrative spark for Star Trek (2009), and problems for Into Darkness. Ironically,

Justin Lin and Chris Pine on the set of Star Trek Beyond

Idris Elba's menacing Krall

AMID ALL THE ENTERTAINING “BEATS AND SHOUTING” OF LIN’S FLUID STYLE, BEYOND ’S TRUE STRENGTH LIES ENTIRELY IN ITS CHARACTERS.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID: “Not every wheel needs reinventing, and one of the abiding pleasures of Star Trek, in its old and newer iterations, lies in its balance of stubborn consistency and canny inventiveness.”

A.O. Scott, The New York Times “The movie looks big, with plenty of battles in galaxies beyond far away, but it feels smallish, a congenial adventure with familiar friends.”

Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal “In a summer where none of the franchises have delivered perfect products, Star Trek Beyond gets closer than most.”

Katharine Trendacosta, Gizmodo “Star Trek Beyond manages to knock you for a bigger loop with just the sight of one man staring at a photograph. You’ll know it the moment you see it. Come to Star Trek Beyond for the pow; stay for the emotional wipeout.”

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

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That said, one moment of pure continuity can’t have left a dry eye in the house, as Spock (Zachary Quinto, again excellent in the role) opens a Vulcan picture frame left to him in Spock Prime’s personal effects, to reveal a photograph of the original original crew, circa The Final Frontier. It’s a thoughtful and respectful homage to that group of actors, Star Trek’s anniversary, and to the late Leonard Nimoy.

Another bittersweet but rather beautiful moment, near the end of the film, is also worthy of note, and I feel certain it was a late edit following the tragic death of Anton Yelchin (Chekov).

Following the crew’s travails at the hands of Krall, during which many lives were lost, Kirk raises a glass to “Absent Friends.” The shot cuts to the group of crew members to whom Kirk is speaking which include dedicated to b is poorer for t

VICE-ADMIRA Amid all the e Lin’s fluid styl in its characte presence, and pain with a po Jaylah (Sofia B movie. In two word of dialog trauma her ch subtlety. Jayla

one J.J. Abrams, providing one of the high points of the movie.

Set three years into the five-year mission, Beyond also finally gives the returning ensemble the chance to play their characters as the mature unit we met back in 1966 – and they clearly relish it. Their camaraderie leaps off the screen and, after three movies, we have a closer relationship with these actors in these parts too, in a way we haven’t before. We’re as comfortable with Pine, Urban, Quinto, Yelchin, Zoe Saldana (Uhura), John Cho (Sulu), and Simon Pegg (Scotty) in their roles as we are with William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, and James Doohan.

In paying tribute to Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, Lin, Pegg, Jung, and their cast and crew have taken the franchise full circle, and proven that there will always be new frontiers to explore in Gene Roddenberry’s universe. Here’s to the next adventure of the starship Enterprise (just how will George Kirk fit in…?)

!

N I W

50 ARTISTS, 50 YEARS

T

o coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the original Star Trek TV series, CBS Consumer Products commissioned a series of art pieces to celebrate memorable moments, characters, storylines, and episodes from all corners of the Star Trek franchise.

owcased in Star Trek: 50 Artists, 50 Years – an exhibition t has toured the USA and beyond – that work is lovingly and clusively presented in this luxurious coffee-table book from an Books, and we’ve got five copies to give away!

FIVE COPIES TO GIVE AWAY!

Find out more www.titanbooks.cat om

To win one of five copies of Star Trek: 50 Artists, 50 Years, just send us the answer to the following Trek triv answer A, B, or C to Which famous artist did Kathryn Janeway Email startrekmagazine@titanemail.com, with “Star Trek 50 Artists Giveaway” in the regularly visit on Voyager’s holodeck? subject line, or send it on a postcard to:

A) “LEONARDO ACROPOLIS” B) “LEONARDO NINJA TURTLE” C) “LEONARDO DA VINCI”

(US readers) Star Trek Magazine, Titan Magazines, 2819 Rosehall Lane, Aurora, IL 60503; (UK readers) Star Trek Magazine, 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP. Don’t forget to include your full name and postal address.

TM CBS Studios Inc. © 2016 Paramount Pictures Corporation. STAR TREK and all related marks and logos are marks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Closing date for giveaway entries is December 5th, 2016. For full terms and conditions, please visit www.titanmagazines.com/t/star-trek/competitions

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT…

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The spark of inspiration that struck Gene Roddenberry more than fifty years ago has been interpreted and redefined by many creative minds since. Our dedicated panel of Trek Talkers lock horns once again, to examine the legacy of Roddenberry’s original vision, and ask whether it has survived that half-century…

Contributors: Michael Clark, Bunny Summers, Rich Matthews, Christopher Cooper, Adam Walker, and Patrick Ross.

Roddenberry with Majel Barrett on the set of "The Cage"

MICHAEL CLARK & BUNNY SUMMERS Trek Bloggers, visionarytrek.com Michael Clark: It’s still hard to believe that Star Trek is celebrating its 50th birthday. I’ve been a fan for over 30 years, and while Star Trek has changed over the years, I’ve always believed that at its core the series has remained true to the vision that Gene Roddenberry set out for the series. Star Trek resonates with so many people, for so many different reasons. For me, that vision has always been one of hope, and throughout every incarnation of Star Trek I have found that hope, whether it’s through the stories or characters. How about you Bunny?

Bunny Summers: I’ll be honest, I’ve only been a fan of Star Trek for about 15 years, and in that time I really only began the journey with Star Trek: Voyager. Was there a vision there? I’m not sure. I certainly wasn’t aware until much later on who Gene Roddenberry was, let alone how he had steered Star Trek through the years. But you’re right, there was always hope. Hope for peace, for a better world, hope for getting through the Delta Quadrant. There was always hope.

MC: Over the years, I’ve read countless books that have told us the story of Star Trek, and how Roddenberry created the series, but at the beginning I can imagine that his early life had

a direct impact upon his vision of the show.

Roddenberry served during WW2, and in the Police Department. He must have encountered humanity at its worst during those years, and I really believe that Roddenberry felt that humanity could strive to be better. I always felt that he was able to convey this more with The Next Generation, rather than the original Star Trek series. With TNG he didn’t have to worry about the network censors, so was able to tell the stories he wanted to by looking at the aspects of humanity that fascinated him.

It’s ironic that the first two seasons of The Next Generation were the least popular, but were closer to how Roddenberry perceived Star Trek.

BS: Obviously, during the filming of the episode “Hero Worship,” in season five, Roddenberry passed away. The first time I watched the DVD extras for season five was the first time I was really aware of what the cast and crew really thought about Gene, as a leader and a visionary.

Star Trek had truly evolved, and – up to a point – it was all under the guidance of one person.

MC: It’s been said that Star Trek grew and came into its own once Roddenberry stepped away.

To an extent I agree with this; Nicholas Meyer is credited with saving Star Trek with The Wrath of Khan, and how it returned to many of the themes of the original series. However, I felt that Meyer and

the writers of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, always tried to remain true to what Roddenberry envisioned for Star Trek, by overcoming adversity, striving to improve themselves, and tell stories that would make us think. They certainly had that effect upon me.

BS: I know there are many fans that don’t feel that Roddenberry would have approved of DS9, especially the war and religious aspects of it, given that his vision was one of peace and a united front, but this, for me, was where Star Trek really stepped up and came into its own, with both plots and characters. It pushed boundaries, and wasn’t afraid to highlight certain issues. This is simply an evolution of what Gene had built, and regardless of whether he would have approved or not, it is what Star Trek is about – and we’re still talking about it today.

MC: Times change, and Star Trek needed to as well. With a new series on the horizon, it’s even more important that it doesn’t forget those foundations, but it needs to be relevant for the times. I’ll never forget what Roddenberry did for Star Trek, but for me the series is now much larger than one man.

BS: One man laid the foundations, and 50 years later when we still gather at conventions, we can’t ever deny who brought us all together.

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Saving Star Trek (The Wrath of Khan)

RICH MATTHEWS & CHRISTOPHER COOPER Star Trek Magazine red-shirts Rich Matthews: Because I came to love Star Trek through the more militaristic movies, particularly The Wrath of Khan, when you talk about Roddenberry’s legacy, it has to be the concept, the humanity of the main characters, and the fertile canvas he established for others to embellish. Oh, and the Enterprise – the greatest spaceship ever.

Christopher Cooper: My love comes from the original series, but I agree it was the concept that Roddenberry, with D.C. Fontana, and Robert Justman set in place that is the genuine legacy, because it is so malleable that different people have been able to pick it up and run with it. I really like the original series and The Motion Picture.

RM: That film is the one piece of pure Roddenberry Trek that I like the most. It has a sense of grandeur, scope, epicness, ambition, and intellectualism that I really respond to. That’s the key for me. Not the “utopian future”, but the grounding in intellectual curiosity. Big Ideas in an entertaining format.

CC: The Roddenberry concept of Star Trek is, I think, best seen in The Motion Picture, “Encounter at

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Filming original pilot, "The Cage"

Farpoint”, and “The Cage.” More so, arguably, than when Star Trek was more “successful.”

RM: Star Trek is like Lycra, or spandex – a fabric that can be stretched beyond its original form to wrap around whatever you need it to be, while maintaining its essential nature. People only got “bored” when they weren’t stretching it enough.

CC: They were trying to keep the existing shape with Voyager to some degree, and definitely with Star Trek: Enterprise.

RM: The Next Generation was the most literal, which is why detractors claim it was bland. It’s definitely driven by humanity trying to improve itself. There was also a sense of [executive producrer] Rick Berman taking on the mantle as opposed to changing it. But then he created Deep Space Nine, which is the furthest away.

CC: DS9 does explore different societies and

how they interact. Societies like the Cardassians and Barjorans almost represent different Earth eras, so I don’t think it’s as huge step away from Roddenberry’s themes as you might think. Just a different way to do it.

RM: In contrast, Voyager feels like the elastic band snapping back very hard to the five-year mission and the final frontier – only not by choice! They even throw out the carried-over discord from DS9, with the Maquis, really fast.

CC: Within five episodes of the first season.

RM: They have them all back in uniform by the end of their first 90 minutes!

CC: The interesting thing about Voyager though, is that even though it’s criticized for resetting everything every episode, at least that refers back to the 1960s show, and an era when that wasn’t seen as a problem.

RM: True. But then we come to Enterprise…

I’m changing my mind – Enterprise is the least Roddenberry.

CC: I have a guilty admission: I’m not a huge fan of that show.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT GENE RM: You’re fired.

self-aware to fully work.

CC: In fact, I only watched the final episode a few years ago.

CC: Defined as much by its riffing on The Wrath of Khan as it by its own story. There are bigger ideas in it, but it’s almost like it lacks the confidence to explore them.

RM: Well, no one can blame you for that. By going to the genesis of Starfleet, it robs Star Trek of some of its quintessence. It is pre-Roddenberry’s vision, so overtly conflicted that they lose their way in fullon military warfare. Everything is a bit too bleak.

Even Archer! Enterprise sucks the optimism out.

CC: Maybe that’s the problem I had with it. It just didn’t feel like Star Trek. The spandex snapped.

RM: Roddenberry was certainly interested in exploring our duality through the mirror universe, so Orci and Kurtzman introduced the one true stroke of Roddenberry-ness by doing a kind of mirror universe reboot. Into Darkness got itself lost in that.

to fill. A new political dynamic after the Khitomer Accords, a new relationship with the Klingons…

It opens doors. Let’s explore those undiscovered nooks and crannies.

RM: I’m all about boldly going where we haven’t been before.

CC: I can see how taking it boldly forward would be the most Roddenberry-esque thing to do.

RM: You know it.

CC: What about the new series?

RM: It was cosmetically a repetition of the same old style, but it lost the essence of the very thing it was portraying.

CC: Don’t you think the 2009 reboot film recaptured that feeling, the chutzpah of the original if not the broader thematic base? It does feel like Star Trek.

RM: It gets the right energy. And the Kelvin timeline is very true to Star Trek. They just didn’t explore it properly, leaning too much on Old Spock.

Into Darkness is loaded with big ideas, but its too

RM: I’d like it to be true to Roddenberry by being set in the Prime Universe, by being further into the future, boldly going with a new ship, a new crew, a new 25th-Century Enterprise. New technology, new worlds; exploration of the future rather than paraphrasing a time we’ve already seen.

CC: I liked the fan theory of jumping in somewhere after The Undiscovered Country.

There’s whole swathes of stories to tell there, with big empty spaces in the timeline

Enterprise – stretching the metaphorical spandex

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ADAM WALKER & PATRICK ROSS Trek Bloggers, trekcore.com Adam Walker: I want to dive in and talk about Gene’s waning influence after the original Star Trek series, and how this impacted on the franchise. Everything after The Motion Picture and The Next Generation’s first season appeared to be a marked departure from his writing style.

Patrick Ross: The executive consultant years.

There are two tracks: the film side of things, once Nicholas Meyer came on board, and on the TV side once Michael Piller took over the reins of The Next Generation. I think that departure showed on screen. I can’t imagine Gene ever penning something like “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or “The High Ground,” which dealt so provocatively with conflict.

AW: It’s almost Version 2.0 of The Next Generation. Gene had always maintained from the start that he didn’t want conflict, jealousy, or tension between his characters. They all had to be singing from the same hymn sheet.

PR: Right, and it’s that kind of edict which stifled a lot of creativity from the get-go. If you go back to the original series, the origin of conflict was always introduced from outside of the crew: A contentious admiral or old friend of the captain, never someone on the primary cast.

Leonard Nimoy (Spock) with Roddenberry, on the set of "The Cage"

After all, we had to be sure that the audience still liked everybody so they’d come back for next week’s episode.

never seeing how humanity reached that point of “utopia,” if you want to call it that. We get a couple of throwaway lines, and that’s about it.

AW: Gene was so keen to carry that utopian vision of a cast united into TNG, but it did end up causing problems: up to 30 writers and staffers left during that first season, many due to Gene’s overriding policy of rewriting scripts to suit his “vision” of where he wanted the show to go.

AW: I’d go with that. It seems more a matter of how the “vision” is presented. Often it became far too self-righteous; I’m thinking of Wesley’s cringeworthy line, “I’m with Starfleet. We don’t lie.”

PR: I think the vision is fine, but you need breathing room to justify its existence. A lot of the complaints with Enterprise stemmed from us

PR: So much happened off screen, between the end of the original series and the start of Next Generation, in terms of his appearances in public and interactions with the fans, that perhaps Gene started to believe what other

were saying about him, in ms of him being the man th this great vision? You n see how that could feed k, and eventually result in ke Wesley’s. the twists and turns of early franchise eventually gave ne. To this day, that show nd arguably even carved of dramatic science fiction. ryone getting along with rtly absent from DS9, till Star Trek.

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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT GENE

Rick Berman with Gene Roddenberry

PR: The Next Generation took the position of uniting an already qualified crew for the greater good, exploring the galaxy, and seeing what’s out there. Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, is very much of the opinion that “hey, things are great out there, but we’ve got a total melting pot here, from every walk of life, and we’re stuck at the edge of the frontier.” It’s a totally different ball game.

AW: When I’m reminded of what made Deep Space Nine so special, I get so frustrated at the missed opportunities in our next show, Voyager.

It almost regresses to the roots of TNG where there’s a lack of serious conflict between the crew.

Considering the setup of the show and the merging of two crews with completely different views on the galaxy, you’d have thought that the opposite should have been true!

PR: Right. They’re pretty much instantly unified under those same lofty Federation goals of spreading diplomacy and peace throughout the

Kirk, Bones, and Spock. Although that’s perhaps where any comparisons should end.

There was certainly a tendency to favor drama and high-octane action in favor of Gene’s subtler morality plays.

PR: I think they tried in a couple of spots. The big one I’m thinking of here is “Dear Doctor,” but they really seemed to struggle to sell that kind of story in 2001.

Deep Space Nine

Delta Quadrant. It sure does make you wonder what could have been.

AW: Which leads us full circle to Enterprise. The producers were very keen to capture the magic of the original series, installing their own triumvirate of Archer, Trip, and T’Pol to mirror the chemistry of

AW: John Billingsley was superb in that episode.

It’s such a shame they didn’t do more of that kind of storytelling. If anything, “Dear Doctor” is a clear beacon to me that Gene’s original approach, and his strongly held beliefs, can still be effectively packaged to produce powerful drama, 50 years later.

PR: That kind of messaging, and more importantly the belief that things can get better, is just as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.

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ORIGINAL FICTION

TIME SCOTSMAN

BY PAUL REED Courtesy of Cryptic Studios

Personal Log, Stardate 47083.68 I’ve arrived at Earth Space Dock to get a little more reacquainted with the 24th Century, after spending over 75 years in a transporter pattern buffer. The old girl’s changed quite a bit since I saw her last, to be certain, as have the beauties docked inside… none as fine as the latest jewel they call Enterprise, however!

A

s the rear hatch of the shuttle Goddard lowered, Captain Montgomery Scott noticed a stern pair of dark-clad figures waiting. “Can I help you, gentlemen?” he asked curiously.

“Agent Dulmur, Department of Temporal Investigations,” said the shorter, fair-haired man. “This is my partner, Agent Lucsly.

We’d like to ask you some questions about your experiences with time travel, Captain.” From the agent’s no-nonsense tone, Scott could tell it wasn’t exactly a request.

“Certainly, lads,” Scott replied. “I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. The Goddard is a bit on the cramped side, however. I’m sure there’s someplace more comfortable nearby – a lounge, perhaps?” The two agents exchanged a brief, silent look before the taller one spoke.

“We’ve got someplace more appropriate in mind,” said Lucsly.

“Three to beam up.” As the transporter effect began, Scott couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “This ought to be a hoot,” he thought to himself as the familiar hum rose in his ears.

The trio rematerialized in a small office suite. “Have a seat, Captain,” said Dulmur as he walked toward a chair behind a desk.

“This shouldn’t take long.”

Scott nodded and pulled out a chair. “I’d imagine you lads in

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STAR TREK ONLINE Temporal Investigations like to make the most of your… time, yes?” he said with a friendly grin. If the two agents were amused, it didn’t show on either of their faces.

“Let’s begin, Captain,” Dulmur replied, irritably.

“Oh, there’s no need for formality here, Agent. You can call me Scotty.”

“According to our files, you’ve been involved in a number of temporal incidents in your career,” Dulmur said while reviewing a file upon a PADD. “The incident involving Captain Christopher in 1969…”

Scotty nodded, smiling as the memory replayed in his mind. “Aye, yes, and I don’t mind saying, I’m still amazed we made it back to our time!”

As the two agents took notes, he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of trouble he was in this time.

Lucsly spoke next. “After that, there was the series of events involving the Guardian of Forever,” he paused, exchanging a look with his partner. “While your participation was free of infractions, we certainly can’t say that for your captain.”

“The man’s a menace,” added Lucsly. “He seemed to inspire a cavalier attitude toward temporal infractions in his crew – including yourself.”

“And what do you mean by that, exactly,” asked Scotty defensively.

“I think you recall the ‘Transparent Aluminum’ incident of 1986,” said Dulmur. “And please don’t call it a predestination paradox.”

Scotty couldn’t help but blush a little with embarrassment. “Is that what this is about, then? I mean, that happened years ago!”

“Three hundred and eighty three years,” Dulmur said with a slight smirk. “To be precise.”

“That’s not what we’re here for,” added Lucsly. “We’d like to ask you about an incident that took place aboard Enterprise while en route to the Babel Conference in 2268.”

“Ah,” Scotty mused. “What can I tell you? The situation was well documented by the captain in his mission logs.”

“We’re more interested in an incident that took place… off the record,” Lucsly continued. “During the battle with the Orion vessel?”

“The jig’s up,” thought Scotty. “They know.” He cleared his throat before speaking. “I assume you’re asking about my conversation there with Chekov yes?”

“Anything else you’d like to add, Captain,” asked Lucsly. “Apart from the ‘fume-induced’ hallucination?”

“Oh, I think that about covers it,” Scotty said warmly. “I’ll be sure to inform your office if anything else comes back to me on the matter, however.”

“Please do,” said Dulmur as he stood. “We hate loose ends.”

“Greatly,” added Lucsly. “Thank you for your cooperation, Captain.”

Scotty managed a smile as he stood. “Any time,” he said as the transporter effect began once again. He materialized outside of the Goddard and wiped his brow with relief as he entered the shuttle and made his way to a secure compartment inside. He opened it and took out a small, advanced device.

“Another fine mess you’ve got me into, Chekov,” Scotty mused. “The next time you show up from the future, try to come back and pick up any gadgets you leave behind!” He examined the strange device for a moment before setting it on a console. “One of these days, you wee beastie,” he said with a smile. “One of these days, I’ll get to the bottom of your mystery! Until then, I think it’s time to find that lounge and a fine bit of scotch.” He headed toward the rear hatch once again, failing to notice a glimmer of light suddenly emitting from the device.

“We’d like to ask you some questions about your experiences with time travel, Captain.”

“Correct,” replied Dulmur, looking up from his notes. “Captain Pavel Chekov.”

“Aye, well,” Scotty responded. “I was doing my best to keep the mains online when Chekov and another officer came running in, rambling on about alien assassins from the future and a bomb on the ship.”

“I see,” said Lucsly. “And was there any substance to these… ramblings?”

“Maybe they don’t know,” thought Scotty. “The whole story, at least.” He smiled.

“Well, there were plenty of aliens onboard for the conference,” Scotty said to Lucsly. “And one of them was an assassin! As for the rest, well…”

“Go on, Captain,” Dulmur said, pausing to add some notes to his PADD. “To be honest, lads, I’m not entirely certain that whole thing wasn’t a… hallucination on my part. We were in combat, and Enterprise had taken more than a few hits from that Orion ship. Could’ve been some… fumes about in Engineering.”

“Fumes?” asked Lucsly, with an arched eyebrow.

“Funny that wasn’t in any of McCoy’s medical logs,” Dulmur added.

“Well, Doctor McCoy had his hands full trying to save Ambassador Sarek’s life at that time,” Scotty replied. “Must’ve slipped his mind.”

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TO PLAY STAR TREK ONLINE: 1. Visit startrekonline.com This will redirect you to our new ArcGames.com STO Product Page 2. Click the “Play for Free” button to download and install the Arc Client 3. Create a New Account through the Arc Client 4. Log in with your new account

BOLDLY GO INTO THE FINAL FRONTIER!

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Deep Space Nine’s Nana Visitor saw her career diversify and reach many heights after the show ended, but like many Star Trek actors, she’s happy to admit that nothing is ever likely to top the creative experience of being a part of the 50-year-old legend.

Words: Ian Spelling

N

ana Visitor’s career hardly stalled after completing her sevenyear run as Major Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She had a recurring role in the James Cameron-created series Dark Angel, achieved her dream of starring on Broadway, with a turn as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago, and enjoyed a long run on the acclaimed family series, Wildfire. Visitor also portrayed Mrs. Voorhees in the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th, appeared in talkingsoft-toy sequel Ted 2, and has provided several voices for the animated show Family Guy. Yet she is happy to concede that her Star Trek role will probably stand as her most rewarding.

“I’ve had some very good opportunities, and I am grateful. I’ve been able to make my living as an actor, and how many people can say that?”

Visitor says of her busy career, “[But] there are only a couple of times in your life that you get a tap on your shoulder and are told, ‘This is an important thing.’ You know it with things like getting married, or having a baby. You don’t know, usually, when you start a job, that ‘this is going to be important.’ It could have the trappings. It could be an A-list movie. But

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that’s no guarantee it’s going to be something lasting, something important, and something that means something to you and to others.”

Visitor is, of course, referring to the third Star Trek TV series, in which she starred as the Bajoran freedom fighter turned respectable, if spikey, Major.

“Deep Space Nine was – is – a huge part of my life. I was aware that this was an important time,” Visitor notes, “Everything else in my life got jettisoned. Everything. I did nothing but try to keep my head above water.

Having children and doing this show, that really was tough, physically and mentally, and all-encompassing. How many shows do 26 episodes anymore? How many shows are as ambitious as Deep Space Nine? It was a big deal, and a lot of work.”

So, all this time after the show came to an end, has Visitor felt as satisfied with her subsequent work?

“The honest answer is no,” she admits, but continues, “Now, do I need to be? I’d love an important job to come up, where I feel like I’m saying something important again, obviously. Otherwise, creatively, I wouldn’t have gone on to write a play – which, besides being an actor, is probably

INTERVIEW: NANA VISITOR

“I KNEW WHO THIS WOMAN WAS, AND I KNEW THAT I WANTED TO PUSH SOME IDEAS THAT I WASN’T SEEING ON TV.”

the other most ridiculous thing to try to get into. It’s just a really hard thing to accomplish. But that hasn’t seemed to matter to me.

“The balance of my family, the balance of doing different things, expressing myself in different ways, like with this play, that has all been fantastic and that’s what matters to me,” Visitor continues, “Do you get that many opportunities to do something that is so satisfying in your life?

I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t know if I ever will again. But I got seven years of it with Deep Space Nine. Already, my cup has been full in terms of what I’d like to creatively do in the world, just from that show.

Anything else is gravy.”

THE PLAY’S THE THING The play of which Visitor speaks is Bardot, which she cryptically describes as “a comedy about a very dramatic moment in a woman’s life.” It turns out that her inspiration was as dramatic as the play’s content, which Visitor describes as only she can, with energy, gravitas and humor.

“I was walking the dogs in the park near [my home] in New York City,” she recalls, “I fell on black ice, hit my head on the concrete. I was OK, but I just thought, ‘Well, that’s one of those things you get an X-ray for.’ I was fine from the fall, but they discovered that a bone in my neck had grown into my spinal cord. And anything – another fall, yoga – could have cut my spinal cord. So I had surgery this year, and when I found out about needing that surgery, they said, ‘Don’t do anything,’ which was really hard for me because I’ve always been a really physically active person. A dancer, you know? It was what kept me sane.”

So Visitor found an alternative, more sedentary way to keep active – through writing. “I sat down for a couple of months before the surgery, and said, ‘I’m going to write a play for René Auberjonois and me.’ And that’s what I did.

But, weirdly, it’s taken on a life of its own. Neither one of us is particularly right for it anymore,” she laughs, “We could do it, but it’s a really tough play, so I’m not sure either one of us would want to do it now. But I’m actively trying to get it produced here, in New York. I think an off-Broadway house would be really perfect for it, so we’ll see what happens. That’s been my focus.”

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Mirror Kira is altogether raunchier

“HOW MANY SHOWS ARE AS AMBITIOUS AS DEEP SPACE NINE? IT WAS A BIG DEAL, AND A LOT OF WORK.”

Quark (Armin Shimerman) tries his luck with Major Kira (Visitor)

"Duet"

PLAYING FAVORITES

ome things never change, even with the passage of time. To this day, more than 17 years after the end of Deep Space Nine, the episode Visitor always deemed her favorite is still her favorite.

“Just in terms of writing, it’s always ‘Duet,’” she says, referring to the firstseason two-hander between Kira and Marritza (Harris Yulin), who professes to be a notorious Cardassian war criminal. “It just said so much, in such an amazing way. And we didn’t have any idea, when we were filming it. It seemed like a big mess, and we thought, ‘This is never gonna work.’ And it’s my favorite episode.”

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While fans wait for Bardot to be realized, whether Visitor decides to perform in it or not, there is currently another opportunity to see her back in action, and on the screen, in streaming Vimeo ballet drama, Full Out. “It’s about a dance company, and I’m the head of the company,” Visitor explains, “It’s a piece about coming out [as gay], which is a tough thing for some dancers to do, to reveal their sexuality. My character, Xan, she’s just a full-out bitch.”

THROUGH THE WORMHOLE Deep Space Nine’s Kira Nerys emerged over the show’s seven seasons as one of the most fullyrounded, fully explored, “real” characters to have ever appeared in any Star Trek series – some would argue in the history of science fiction television. The tone of the entire series was very much encapsulated in the character of the feisty Bajoran.

“Everyone says Deep Space Nine was the darkest of the Star Trek shows, and it was,” Visitor attests, “and I think it’s also absolutely true that Kira was Deep Space Nine’s darkest character, [alongside] Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks). I think the darkness came from both of them, and their struggle. There was a lot of struggle, and a lot of gray. And I still question whether she would be a regular character in today’s world of television. I don’t know. The timing was really interesting. I called myself a freedom fighter, but I was a terrorist.”

Kira was no stereotype. She fought when necessary, and never completely shed those terrorist roots, but despite her hard-as-nails persona, Kira would (occasionally) crack a smile, or even laugh. She loved. She was loyal.

She kicked ass. Viewers felt she lived, and lives on – an assessment that came to the fore several times during Visitor’s conversation with Star Trek Magazine.

Visitor must have known the potential for all of the above existed right from the start, because she grasped the intricacies of the role the moment she first received the character breakdown. In fact, Visitor walked into her Deep Space Nine audition – facing a phalanx of the show’s producers and the network’s executives – pretty much as Kira.

“I knew who this woman was,” Visitor says, “And I knew that I wanted to push some ideas that I wasn’t seeing on TV, or particularly in film, at that time. A woman who had appetites, who made mistakes, who was, as they say now, ‘in the arena.’ Full-on out there, ready to be judged, but living from a set of strong beliefs and desires.”

INTERVIEW: NANA VISITOR

Kira (Nana Visitor) with Worf (Michael Dorn)

TRIBAL GATHERING Not only was Deep Space Nine the darkest entry into the Trek canon, it was also something of an orphan, not as feted by the critics as its predecessor, The Next Generation. In fact, it was different in almost every way. Even the DS9 set had a different vibe from The Next Generation and, later, Voyager. The cast was a group of pros who shared tremendous chemistry, but there was never the love-in that The Next Generation cast famously enjoyed. All of that, Visitor acknowledges, “fueled” her performance.

“It was easy for me to drop into the place I felt I needed to be in,” she says, “The set was part of it. It was so huge. You walked in and, if you spent 12 to 16 hours there, it wasn’t hard to believe that you were on a space station, in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes it felt like that. I remember walking around Paramount with my make-up, before anyone on the lot knew what we were doing. This was early on. And people would look at me, and then look at me again. I had my nose on, and they were curious. But it wasn’t really hard for me to go, ‘Yeah? What’s the matter with my nose?’ So I got the feeling of being a Bajoran in a Cardassian world. I looked different. ‘What’s wrong with the way I look?’

“So, just walking around the lot helped prepare me,” Visitor continues, “The fact was that we were such different people as a community, as a cast, and yet they were my tribe, for seven years.

We were so different, from such different lives.

Alexander Siddig was English, and the most unbelievable gentleman, and he was so shocked by the aggressive New Yorker in me – which made me even more pissed off. So when we were in scenes together, it worked perfectly. He was like, ‘Whoa!

Whoa! That’s a lot of energy.’ Just in his eyes, I could see that. And that would fuel me even more to be pissed off. So it all kind of fed in.”

MIRROR IMAGE D eep Space Nine, dark as it was in any given episode, ventured into even darker territory with its Mirror Universe episodes. Those five hours – among them “Crossover,” “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” and “Resurrection” – presented audiences with Intendant Kira, a hedonistic, spoiled and narcissistic version of an already dynamic and compelling character.

“I come from theater and I love to do big characters, but I was always worried that I was going to take the diva bit of Intendant Kira too far, and make her funny,” Visitor confesses, “And I found her so frightening. I wanted her to walk that line where you’re almost going, ‘Ah, she’s kind of cool,’ and then make you think, ‘Oh my God, I’m liking someone who’s a sociopath.’

I wanted that edge. Sometimes I felt like I fell off that edge, into funny/diva, as opposed to dangerous woman.”

IT WASN T HARD TO BELIEVE THAT YOU WERE ON A SPACE STATION, IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.”

THE BAJORAN IN THE IRON MASK

isitor once suggested a story twist that writer-producer Ira Steven Behr ultimately shot down. It could have been a doozy, but would certainly have been a canon-minefield!

“There was a time where Intendant Kira escaped on the station, and I wanted it to come out a couple of years later that Kira was locked up somewhere, and the Intendant was behaving as if she was Kira, and really involved in making the whole war thing,” Visitor reveals, “So, Kira was this double agent, but it wasn’t Kira. It was the Intendant.

Probably they’d have needed to have thought about that a couple of years before I said it.

They would have had to comb through every show to go, ‘Oh, wait a minute. Kira says this, so that can’t be.’ But I gave it a shot.”

V

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Visitor and Siddig wound up falling in love, and they wed in 1997. Siddig helped Visitor raise her son, Buster, from a previous marriage, and together they had Django in September, 1996. On screen, however, it was Odo (René Auberjonois) with whom Kira shared a romance. Despite the two actors’ genuine affection for each other, Visitor despised the pairing.

“It was the terrain of TV in that time period,” she notes, “There were a lot of shows about people who didn’t like each other, or one’s a scruffy character, but, hey, they fall in love. That’s what the problem was the whole time – If they’re friends, it always turned romantic. And I loved the idea of friends, just friends, the idea that men and women can be friends. But I’m not sure that that’s even realistic, I have to say. In my life, I was great friends with Siddig, and ended up getting married to him! So there you go (laughs).”

Visitor was glad to share so much screen time with Auberjonois, however.

WHAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND Visitor remains very much a part of the Star Trek universe, and is supportive of her fellow Trek alumni. She attended the opening night of George Takei’s Broadway show, Allegiance, and joined Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Zachary Quinto at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of For the Love of Spock, Adam Nimoy’s documentary about his late father, the legendary Leonard Nimoy. With that connection still so strong, and considering her obvious affection for the part, would Visitor be open to reprising the role of Kira, even if only for a few episodes, in the upcoming Star Trek series?

“It’s all about the writing, for me,” Visitor replies, “I’m very protective of Kira, but I don’t feel like, ‘Oh my God, it’s a relic. Just leave it.’ That was the beauty of the character; she grew and she changed. She was wrong and she was right. She was alive, and she’s still alive. So, yeah, I wouldn’t have any problem playing Kira again.”

Photo: Sam Aronov / Shutterstock.com

Nana Visitor, then and now (top right)

“I enjoyed the scenes with René, of course,” she points out, “He’s one of my favorite actors to work with, and one of my favorite people. In the end, I think it was a good relationship that worked for both characters. But thank God they didn’t stay together, is all I can say. That was important to me, because it would’ve been overly romanticized. And it made their goodbye in the finale that much more effective.”

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50th ANNIVERSARY

The cultural impact of Star Trek has been felt far and wide since its first episode was broadcast, 50 years ago – not least by the actors, writers, and production staff who’ve worked on it. In the first installment of a three-part series, we asked them: “What does it mean to you to be a part of the Star Trek phenomenon?” Interviews compiled by Ian Spelling

5

0 years of Star Trek. It simply boggles the mind. It’s almost impossible to compute. Somehow, as an old Vulcan friend might observe, it defies logic. Yet the fact remains that Star Trek debuted on September 8th, 1966, half a century ago, and it changed the world – if not immediately…

Despite quickly finding a dedicated core audience, mainstream appeal eluded the original series, and the show was cancelled after three seasons.

It was only over the ensuing decades that the wider world truly began to comprehend the brilliance of Gene Roddenberry’s Wagon Train to the Stars, and embraced the multimedia phenomenon that is Star Trek today.

To help put those 50 years of Star Trek into perspective, Star Trek Magazine undertook a year-long quest to track down and speak to as many people as possible who have had direct input into making the show. From series regulars to guest stars, the stuntpeople, authors, make-up artists, directors, editors, and producers, the visual effects wizards and more, whose creative drive brought Star Trek to life over the past half-century.

In some cases that was impossible, so we’ve also looked to our archive of interviews to draw on the wisdom of memorable Star Trek alumni, including testimony from those who are sadly no longer with us, and to whom this feature is respectfully dedicated.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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GATES MCFADDEN

AVERY BROOKS Benjamin Sisko, Deep Space Nine “One of the reasons I accepted, once asked to do Star Trek, was to give a single child a chance to see the long thought, to see themselves some 400 years hence. It occurred to me that we must ensure that we keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon. To let the children know that there is possibility, to let the children know that someone is not going to take away or destroy this world before they have a chance. We have to keep that in front of them. That’s not altruistic. Somebody has to keep the horizon happening, and let us not acquiesce, or fall down, or lie down for somebody else’s desire to destroy the world.”

Dr. Beverly Crusher, The Next Generation “I love it when people tell me they became doctors or surgeons because they loved Beverly. I’ve had people say they thought of me as a mother figure.

Someone who’d been in foster homes told me that because I was on the TV every week, I was the constant. I used to be uncomfortable with that, but now I get it. I had role models. It’s awesome to have role models. And it wasn’t necessarily me. I don’t take credit for it personally because that would be ridiculous. It was the writing and the character, and I was just a little part of it, but I’m so pleased that it’s something that came out of my doing Trek. And, what does it mean to me to be a part of the Trek phenomenon? It means I’ve been very fortunate indeed. Happy 50th, Star Trek.”

“I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE TELL ME THEY BECAME DOCTORS OR SURGEONS BECAUSE THEY LOVED BEVERLY.” MICHAEL AND DENISE OKUDA Designers, and Star Trek Encyclopedia Authors “We each grew up with Star Trek, so we feel like Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the others are our friends, who took us along on so many wonderful adventures.

We’re so grateful that when we grew up, we both got to be part of the Trek production family, helping to share Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Gene reminded us that if we are smart, if we are compassionate, and if we work together, tomorrow can be better place for all – and that together, we can share the joy, wonder, and adventure of exploring the final frontier.”

RONNY COX Captain Edward Jellico, The Next Generation, “Chain of Command” Parts I and II “I’ve been in about a gazillion movies and television shows. I’ve had a whole bunch of people, some of them close relatives, actually, who say that my work on Trek is the only thing of any worth I’ve done.”

MELINDA M. SNODGRASS Writer, The Next Generation, “The Measure of a Man” “I remember the first night I saw the Enterprise swoop across our color television screen. I was a little kid already in love with science fiction and suddenly here were my dreams made manifest. And not just a dream of spaceships and adventure, but a dream of a united planet, and women who got to have cool adventures, too. That little girl never dreamed she’d get to work in that universe – or maybe in some ways she did, because Star Trek helped me realize that even if I was a “girl” I could pursue my dreams. Like many women in that era, I had been constantly told what I couldn’t be – jockey, astronaut, President. Then here came Trek, and I realized that didn’t have to be the future. Trek offered a different way. A better way.”

“I WAS A LITTLE KID ALREADY IN LOVE WITH SCIENCE FICTION AND SUDDENLY HERE WERE MY DREAMS MADE MANIFEST.” JONATHAN FRAKES Commander William Riker, The Next Generation Director of the Trek movies First Contact and Insurrection “I don’t think I’ve played Riker for the last time. It comes up every time I play him. “Is this the last time?” It’s a good question. It’s a fair question. And the answer is I don’t think so. I am eternally optimistic. Whenever Trek comes back, whether it’s as a movie or as a television show, if they ask me to play Riker again, of course I’d be open to it.

I’m very appreciative of the fans, very appreciative of everything Trek has done for me.

And I like the character. Doing Enterprise, while it was bittersweet, just reminded me how lucky we’ve all been to be a part of this family, how it’s effectively given us all our careers, our houses. It has been a real blessing. So, they know where to find me.”

ZOE SALDANA Uhura in Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond On Gene Roddenberry: “If I met him, I don’t think I’d ask him a question. I think I’d just say, ‘Thank you.’”

MICHAEL DORN

“WHENEVER TREK COMES BACK, WHETHER IT’S AS A MOVIE OR AS A TELEVISION SHOW, IF THEY ASK ME TO PLAY RIKER AGAIN, OF COURSE I’D BE OPEN TO IT.”

Worf, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine “The big thing for me is to realize and appreciate that the people I worked with on Trek are still very dear friends of mine. That’s a long time to be really good friends. Someone put this very, very clearly f it this way before, but he said, ‘Michael, I don blow up your ego any more than it needs to, b you created a character that has had amazing longevity, in terms of fans liking the character. He’s a Trek icon, if I can say that.

Everybody knows Worf, and everybody has their likes and dislikes about the guy. He’s a very strong character, and he’ll survive long after you’re gone.’ That brought it into focus for me. I realized, ‘Hey, wow, this was a big deal.’”

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DAN MADSEN, Creator of Star Trek Communicator magazine and The Official Star Trek Fan Club “In ‘Plato’s Stepchildren,’ when Kirk said to Alexander, ‘Alexander, where I come from, size, shape, or color makes no difference,’ those words rocked my world, as a 14-year old and a ‘little person.’ My life would never be the same. I dreamed of a future where I’d be accepted for who I was; not how tall I was, or how I looked. Trek presented me with a world in which every human being was treasured for who they are, and accepted for their uniqueness. While the world around me is still troubled, I feel we’ve come a long way in the acceptance of others since the days I watched my first Trek episode. I see that people, in general, are more accepting of ‘little people’ like me. Forty years after ‘Plato’s Stepchildren,’ I feel much more confident that, if I were able to, I could also look Alexander in the eye and say today,

LIA NICKSON n T’Su, The Next Generation, Freedom,” p Space Nine, “Paradise” rstood that the world is made all ethnicities. It embraced an that we are connected by more than just pearance. It allowed me hope, striving to make my own .”

EY COMBS youn, Deep Space Nine • Penk, terprise original series first aired. It the start. Even at that young age I es were parables for our time, that s in a complex and changing world. It ometimes cheesy, but always with a aracter-driven humor. I never would’ve ’d grow up to be a part of the Trek ured my imagination as a to this day to rain down Long live Star Trek.“

HO r Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond has always been a hero of mine. He’s the one that brought Trek, as a kid. I think every person of color in America knows king about. When you’re switching the channels and you see ho looks like you, you freak out. Especially in the 1960s and d even the 1980s, there just weren’t as many faces of color ion as there are today. So, George is someone who’s been nd been on my radar, ever since I came to this country. So nnected to him in this way is a real honor.”

MARINA SIRTIS Deanna Troi, The Next Generation “I just keep thinking, because it’s The Next Generation’s 30th anniversary next year, “How is that possible?”

That’s what goes through my head, “How is that possible that that was 30 years ago, or that Trek as a whole started 50 years ago?” How is that possible when I’m still hanging out with Nichelle, George, and Walter? It just seems impossible. And I feel the same about our show. When you’re asking me this question next year about Next Generation, don’t bother, because I’ll tell you now – it’s not possible that this was 30 years ago. I don’t feel that that is right, somehow. I feel like I’ve been in a time warp, honestly.”

ALICE KRIGE The Borg Queen, First Contact and Voyager “It really didn’t dawn on me until we started doing publicity for First Contact that Star Trek is part of modern mythology.

I didn’t realize the extent to which the whole concept of Trek is an icon in the modern consciousness. There are references to Trek everywhere – in literature, in advertising, and even in daily exchange. People quote it without even trying. The bank near where I’m staying at the moment is using the phrase “To boldly go” as part of its advertising campaign. So it’s very interesting to me to have been a part of it. I had absolutely no idea at all of Trek’s pervasiveness.”

“STAR TREK IS PART OF MODERN MYTHOLOGY.” COLM MEANEY Miles O’Brien, The Next Generatio “It makes me feel very old. It’s scary. W long time. Sometimes we take it for gr part of your life when you come to an e Everyone is so familiar, and we’ve know Hana Hatae is a beautiful young lady n birth to her. My own little girl is 30 now kid when we were doing Trek. I’m kind everyone growing up around me.”

LINDA PARK Hoshi Sato, Enterprise “I think the best thing that’s happened to me is that, with more and more retrospect, I see what a big impact Trek does have not only on our culture, but on many people. Even today when I get letters, some of them are about other things I’ve done, but most of them are about Trek. The ripple effect of this show is endless. It has been for a couple of generations, and will be for generations to come. Now, with J.J. Abrams having resurrected Star Trek for newer audiences and really having made it cool again, it’s something I’m really proud – as I get older – to have been a part of. I’ll share everything I’ve done with my family, but Star Trek will be something really special to share with them.”

PATRICIA TALLMAN, Stuntwoman and actress, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Generations “I cannot believe my great good fortune to be a part of such an iconic part of television history. It’s phenomenal to be celebrating Trek’s 50th anniversary with my fellow actors and crew members from The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, as well as George, Nichelle, and Walter. The heart and soul of these shows are something to be proud of, for sure.”

DAME JOAN COLLINS Edith Keeler in “The City on the Edge of Forever” “When I was asked to do Star Trek, I remember saying to my agent, ‘Well, what is Star Trek?’ I’d never heard of it. When I told my children – who were then about two and four – that I’d been asked to do Star Trek, my daughter (who was the older child) jumped up and down and said, ‘Oh, mum, you must do it. It’s a great show.’ So that’s why I did it. I am pleased (to be a part of the Star Trek phenomenon).

It’s nice. But I didn’t even have a clue at the time that we’d made a memorable episode. It was not until several years later.”

MARK ALLEN SHEPHERD Morn, Deep Space Nine “I was so amazed by my Trek experience that I had to collect at least one copy of every magazine with Morn on the cover or featured inside: Entertainment Weekly, MAD magazine, as well as Newsweek, TV Guide, Star Trek Magazine, Starlog, Deep Space Nine Magazine, etc. It was unbelievable when the studio started delivering me large manila envelopes, filled with fan mail. That went on during the show’s entire run. I’m told every piece of fan mail represents 15,000 fans, and when I received 1,000 pieces that means some 15 million fans love Morn – a character that never said a word in seven years. That’s how amazed I was. In Germany, where I live now, there was a Trek 50th anniversary feature done in the local TV Guide & Movie magazine that had Morn listed number five in a top 10 list of the Most Curious Stories in Trek History. It’s just one of those things that has almost a magical quality, and seems to take on a life of its own – and it’s something I’m very grateful for.”

“IT’S JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT HAS ALMOST A MAGICAL QUALITY.” GEORGE TAKEI Hikaru Sulu, Star Trek “It’s funny, but we’ve been anticipating Trek’s 50th anniversary ever since 2012 or 2013. Everyone’s been saying, ‘In three more years…’ or ‘In four more years, we’ll be 50 years old.’ Now we’re just about there, at the 50th anniversary of the show airing. I have to tell you, when we were filming the second pilot, Jimmy Doohan and I were talking, and he said, ‘Well, what do you think of this pilot? Will this sell?’ I said, ‘Well, I smell quality with this show, and that means we’re in trouble. If it sells, we’ll probably last only one season.’ I said that because all of the shows that I liked, all the quality shows, did not last very long on TV. So, that’s the type of prognosticator I was. And I am very happy to have been so very, very wrong.”

STEPHANIE ERB Liva, The Next Generation, “Man of the People” “As a little kid, I’d memorize all the words to syndicated episodes of the original series. As an 11-year old, I wanted to marry Spock. In college, Trek was on TV every Sunday.

My buddies and I called it ‘church,’ and always watched, no blasphemy intended. So, to be part of the legacy of Trek was no small achievement. It was a life goal. The fact I got to be ‘beamed up,’ received a hand-painted tattoo – as Liva – from Michael Westmore, and shared most of my scenes with Patrick Stewart? Dreamy. And it was my first TV job. So, being part of the Trek phenomenon meant, and does mean, the world to me.”

JOEL SWETOW, Yog, The Next Generation, “Firstborn” Gul Jasad, Deep Space Nine, “Emissary” Ambassador Thoris, Enterprise, “Terra Prime” “To have been a part of something that has lasted so long and has such devoted fans is humbling, to say the least. I’m extremely proud of the many and varied roles I’ve played in my career, but most of them will eventually fade into oblivion. Thanks to the unique, dedicated fans of Star Trek, however, I feel confident that my tiny little slice of immortality is assured.”

ARON EISENBERG, Nog, Deep Space Nine “Being a part of Star Trek has been an absolute blessing and honor. It’s incredible to think that I will forever be part of an enduring legacy, a part of Americana, if you will. I couldn’t have been more fortunate in my acting career than to be a part of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and portray the character of Nog. What an absolutely wonderful experience.”

WILLIAM SHATNER Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trek “There is nothing else like Star Trek. And if there ever is something else like it, we’ll all be long gone, because it will be 50 years from now. So, this is a unique phenomenon that I am very grateful to be a part of.”

“THERE IS NOTHING ELSE LIKE STAR TREK.” STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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TIME’S ARROW MacGuffin. The final plot device. Our mission is to explore strange deus ex machina… to seek out new twists and new machinations… To boldly go where no Star Trek feature has gone before!

Words: Rich Matthews

n space, there are a lot of MacGuffins. The infinite possibilities of exploring the Final Frontier affords writers a whole universe (well, at least a galactic quadrant or two) of narrative tricks and whojamaflips to play with. One of the beauties of Star Trek is the writers consider it supremely important that their MacGuffins are routed in science, wherever possible. At least on the television set; it’s not unfair to say that the movie incarnations of Gene Roddenberry’s star-bound wagon train take a few more, shall we say, “liberties” when it comes to plot, character, and the various deus ex machina they throw at them. They have less time to tell their main stories, after all.

On The Next Generation, the production team knew that the first, or even the second explanation would have maintained their technobabble veil of authenticity, but movies have to play to the widest possible audience. Hence Riker drawing the short-IQ straw to spell out the dumbed-down "Time travel!" explanation for Picard's "They're opening a temporal vortex!" line in First Contact. If we’re honest, that's the real version: the MacGuffin stripped of pretense and scientific disguise. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of – Alfred Hitchcock is revered as one of the greatest, most sophisticated movie directors to ever walk the sunbaked pathways of Hollywood, and he made no bones about using a good MacGuffin, which he brazenly described as a gimmick – gloves, engine plans, coded messages, pieces of music, a key, a handbag, a sleeve. The ultimate Hitchcockian MacGuffin is used in The Birds: the reason the birds all start attacking us… is never given. It just happens. Star Trek, however, likes its narrative tricks to have the sleek sophistication of the Enterprise’s perfectly engineered warp nacelles. Or they slingshot round the sun to find some extinct humpback whales – whichever works best.

So let’s take a look at the MacGuffins employed by the first 12 Star Trek movies…

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DATACORE Glossary of Terms MACGUFFIN A fictional plot device, usually in the form of a goal, desired object, or other motivator, often presented with little or no narrative explanation.

DEUS EX MACHINA A contrived plot device in a play, movie, or novel, often a special power or unexpected event, that is introduced to a narrative to resolve an otherwise hopeless and irresolvable problem.

HITCHCOCKIAN Derived from the name of movie director Alfred Hitchcock, who was known for his suspenseful style of storytelling.

ALLEGORY The use of characters and events to symbolize big ideas, often of a political, social, moral, or religious nature.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1978) MACGUFFIN: V’ger (“Voyager”) TYPE: Character/Conceptual t first V’ger is portrayed as a mysterious threat, then a flat-out villain, then finally the first child of a new kind of artificial lifeform, with no parents to teach it manners. This is brilliant, because V’ger – a.k.a. the lost-in-space Earth probe Voyager from the 20th Century, found by a species of sentient machines, refitted to be as clever as possible, then sent back to meet its “maker” – changes to fit the story’s needs. This includes acting as a mirror-cum-prism to reflect back the motivations and personal dilemmas of the characters, especially Spock, whose emotional journey is a direct parallel of V’ger’s, namely maturation beyond linear information gathering and logic algorithms into a thinking, feeling being.

It’s such a good MacGuffin it even allows the writers to get rid of Decker, the problematic new add-on character who felt like the physical manifestation of the entire aborted Star Trek Phase 2 TV series. Stroppy about Kirk coming onboard the Enterprise, Decker feels like a redundant character for much of the movie – even though he has the most heroic chin in Starfleet! – until he meets his destiny in a climax that’s pure Roddenberry sci-fi, “merging” with V’ger (in the form of V’ger’s android replica of Ilia) and evolving to a new level of consciousness. What a way to go! Lucky for him no-one wears a red shirt on this Enterprise.

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STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982) MACGUFFIN: Genesis Torpedo; Ear Worms TYPE: Chase/Metaphorical; Character veryone wants Genesis. Simple. But that’s just an excuse to get Kirk and Khan going head-to-head once again. And what is Genesis? CGI Life in a bottle. Strapped to a photon torpedo. Next-gen tech that heralds a utopian future of effort-free terraforming, or a dystopian future of effort-free planetary genocide. Take your pick.

So our hero and our villain spend the film trying to stop each other getting hold of the metaphor for their respective points of view, while Khan/the writers put mind-controlling ear worms into Chekov, and a red shirt (sorry Captain Terrell, but it’s true) to facilitate Khan’s escape and possession of the “Dark Enterprise”, the Reliant. What Director Nick Meyer did so wonderfully was to effortlessly, and inextricably, weave these two already admirable MacGuffins into the characters’ motivations so that they are unquestionable, then tie a dandy literary bow on it all with references to Melville (Moby Dick), Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities), and Shakespeare (too many to list). You could argue that the reason Wrath of Khan is considered the best Star Trek film ever is because it has the best Star Trek MacGuffin ever – Genesis literally brings new life and Star Trek II brought new life to the franchise, and new vigor to the ageing crew.

E The Genesis device

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK (1984) MACGUFFIN: Genesis Planet; Spock TYPE: Scenario/Chase; Character enesis is back! And this time it’s a planet! And Spock is on it! Oh, did we mention he died saving the Enterprise in Wrath of Khan (does that still count as a spoiler?!), then got fired onto the surface of the newly created Genesis planet, where the Genesis wave regenerated his cells in syncopation with the young planet’s formation?

Spock himself is the main MacGuffin here, as the film’s title spells out. The titular search is both for Spock’s physical body on the planet, and for his “katra”, his essence or consciousness, which he transferred to McCoy’s irascible noggin just before he opted for the needs of the many and irradiated himself in the Enterprise warp core. Cue Kirk’s rebellion against Starfleet, the return of the Klingons, the death of Kirk’s estranged son, and the destruction of the Enterprise.

The Search for Spock arguably overstretches its Genesis MacGuffin by using it to justify too much of the story (it’s a wave, it’s a planet, it’s an effect!), including the film’s climax, where we find pretty much everything about Genesis is unstable – causing the planet to age at an accelerated rate, thus conveniently transforming Spock back to Leonard Nimoy’s precise age and familiar visage.

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STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986) MACGUFFIN: Whales; Time Travel TYPE: Both Plot And Deus Ex Machina t’s not often your two main MacGuffins weigh 30-odd tons each, let alone require flinging into space at a fast enough speed (like, nearly warp 10, folks) to use the sun’s incredible gravitational forces to open up a temporal vortex to travel forward in time some 300 years, so they can talk to a probe that has come a long way to have an oceanic chat with some humpbacks (who were extinct in the future, you see). Phew! The deus ex machina is the probe, its arrival, and its signal damaging Earth’s atmosphere while it tries to locate its cetacean buddies.

Once that crisis is in place, plot machination numero dos is time travel, always a doozy, and quite common in Star Trek. It’s also proven to be one of the best devices employed in Roddenberry’s future vision – “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” and “The City on the Edge of Forever” being exemplars – so it’s no wonder that it produced one of the film series’ most commercial outings, putting Kirk, Spock, Bones and the gang on the 20th Century streets of San Francisco, which is funnier than even the silliest episode of TJ Hooker. But that’s a lot of sci-fi legwork to get us to “And a double-dumbass on you!”

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TIME'S ARROW STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) MACGUFFIN: Center Of The Universe; God TYPE: Destination/Chase; Character ood God! I mean literally – Shatner’s single outing in the center seat of a movie production is the search for God. Now, this could’ve worked, because Star Trek has never shied away from the metaphysical, and the plot-driving chase MacGuffin – the search for the mythical Center of the Galaxy through the impenetrable Great Barrier – is a good one, if a bit hammered home. And religion is a handy way of exploring characters’ outlook on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

While the idea of a deity simply being some crazy alien isn’t a bad one, it’s nevertheless one that Star Trek had explored before, and The Final Frontier suffers from budgetary restrictions versus ambition towards its climax, with “God” chasing Kirk across a hell planet set, largely in the dark.

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Some aliens have delusions of grandeur

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991) MACGUFFIN: Planet Goes Kaboom; Gravity Boots; A Ship That Can Fire While Cloaked TYPE: Deus Ex Machina; Search; Stakes Raiser n one of Star Trek’s more thinly veiled allegories, the Klingon Empire pulls a USSR circa 1989 and needs ol’ Uncle Federation to help bail it out of trouble.

The MacGuffin deployed to destabilize the status quo was a moon – Praxis, which happens to be the location of the Klingons’ key energy facility – blowing up, forcing a détente with Starfleet. That’s it, really – followed up by lots of

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Cold War shenanigans, plus a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that fires torpedoes when cloaked, amping up the submarine warfare action that Star Trek has always done so well. However, there is a smaller, more classic MacGuffin – a pair of gravity boots used to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon. The boots are pure Hitchcock, especially the subsequent search and numerous red herrings they create. It’s fair to say VI’s MacGuffins are the most obvious in the series, but deployed with wit and guile.

A sticking plaster won't fix those bunions

STAR TREK GENERATIONS (1994) MACGUFFIN: The Nexus TYPE: Conceptual/Chase he Nexus: a place where all space-time converges according to a being’s innermost desires, allowing them to relive perfect moments in a Groundhog Day cycle of artificial ecstasy. It’s actually pretty mean of Picard to go in there and drag Kirk out to, basically, have fisticuffs with Soran (the always reliable Malcolm MacDowell) to stop the mad scientist from getting (back) in. Well, actually to stop Soran destroying planets to generate enough energy to divert the ribbon so he can then get back in. The Nexus is a fairly neat way of getting Kirk and Picard into the same place, but why do the existential MacGuffins always make the production destroy the Enterprise? Troi crashes the Enterprise-D, but at least Kirk and Picard succeed, Kirk buying the Iowa farm in the process, then we never hear of the Nexus again. Bye-bye energy ribbon, bye-bye nirvana! Hello Borg!

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Make this your Nexus vacation destination

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STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996) MACGUFFIN: Time Travel; The Borg TYPE: Plot; Character lot analysis is futile. The Borg can literally do anything. When they make a sudden brand shift from cube ships to sphere ships, we go with it; when that new sphere travels back in time, we’re caught up in its temporal wake as much as the Enterprise-E. And no other race in Star Trek history creates bigger, nastier, ickier stakes than the civilization/species/planet assimilating master race of cybernetic self-improvers. We even go with it when the hive mind proves to actually be controlled by Alice Krige’s oddly sexy S&M-fetish-on-legs Borg Queen. They also facilitate nifty parallel storytelling – on Earth of the late-21st Century, we get a race against time to make sure Zefram Cochrane’s first warp flight happens on schedule, which is fun, exciting, and weirdly nostalgic, seeing as its still technically the future; meanwhile on ship, it’s Alien meets The Terminator, Star Trek’s first true horror movie as the Borg slowly but surely assimilate the Enterprise-E. And let’s not forget that the Borg’s preference for high humidity environments gives Patrick Stewart an excuse to swap his uniform for a Die Hard vest, and unleash a Jean-Luc gun show. Nice pecs, Picard!

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Picard clone Shinzon

STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (1998) MACGUFFIN: Fountain Of Youth TYPE: Conceptual/Chase dmittedly, having the Fountain of Youth as your main plot device does feel more at home in an Indiana Jones flick than a Star Trek movie, but at least they scale it up to an entire planet of youth that gives Worf pimples. The Ba’ku are old, but look young because their planet has energy that regenerates them, while the horribly diseased Son’a want the energy to make them young and healthy again. Lob in some Federation under-the-table duplicity, a twist that the Son’a are actually ex-Ba’ku, and Picard going rogue to protect the planet, and you have a decent epis— sorry, movie plot.

This currently remains the simplest of the movies’ MacGuffins so far, but it does allow for some of the funniest explorations of The Next Generation crew dynamics, and at last gives Jean-Luc a credible love interest.

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Who authorized sending every chief of staff on one Away Team...?

STAR TREK NEMESIS (2002) MACGUFFIN: Picard Clone; Radiation Weapon TYPE: Character; Deus Ex Machina n a pleasing piece of dramatic symmetry, the character of Shinzon is a clone of Picard from the planet Remus, the twin world of Romulus. Nemesis makes heavy use of mirroring devices, including the discovery of the Data prototype B-4, to embellish what is otherwise a fairly traditional example of space submarine action.

This is something of a missed opportunity, because a very rich canvas is established, but the MacGuffin that ends up most impactful is the biogenic thalaron radiation that Shinzon’s ship, the Scimitar, threatens to use to attack Earth. In true MacGuffin form, the radiation is a weapon almost without limit, only needing a microscopic amount to wreak havoc. Plus, it’s deployed by a natty-looking, twirling green thingamajig from within the ship, which is basically a great big radiation generator with nacelles. Of course, the MacGuffinin-waiting for the unmade Star Trek XI was B-4, the vessel for the reintroduction of the destroyed Data (who, in true Spock form, sacrificed himself for the ship) being foreshadowed when the child-like android sings “Blue Skies” in the film’s final moments.

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TIME'S ARROW The small matter of Red Matter

STAR TREK (2009) MACGUFFIN: Red matter; Old Spock TYPE: Deus Ex Machina; Character his is the Big Daddy of Star Trek movie maguffins – a big ball of red energy that does stuff. You never learn how or why it does the stuff it does, but, oh boy, does it do it. We can talk about refined rare isotopes, or how the intense pressurization present inside a star or a planetary core amplifies any destructive properties of said element to create a singularity, but none of that is in the movie. It’s a big red ball of MacGuffin stuffin’ that brings old Spock back in time, creates an alternate timeline, kills Kirk’s dad, blows up Vulcan, then threatens to do the same to Earth. It could have been a small bottle labelled “Reboot Juice.” It’s pure J.J. Abrams, given that a similar red ball appeared in his TV series Alias and Mission: Impossible III. Old Spock himself is a MacGuffin, because he drives the whole second half of the movie after coincidentally ending up in the same ice cave as the exiled Kirk (coincidentally not far from where Scotty is polishing his boots, with a handy transwarp equation collecting dust in the back pocket of his wooly ice planet parka), where he proceeds to clue him in on the entire backstory via Mind Meld (nicely visualized for about the only time in the Trek canon) therefore giving Kirk all the necessary info to save the day. Which of course involves using the big ball of red MacGuffin stuffin’.

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THE BIG DADDY OF STAR TREK MOVIE MACGUFFINS – A BIG BALL OF RED ENERGY THAT DOES STUFF. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013) MACGUFFIN: Khan; Eugenics TYPE: Character; Conceptual verything that occurs in Into Darkness stems from Khan: his actions (Federation terrorism); new weapons; new warships; genetically engineered blood that brings irradiated Starfleet captains (and tribbles) miraculously back to life… There are fertile concepts, explored because Khan is found early (this is before the Enterprise has even started on its five-year mission), including exploitation, terrorism, genetic engineering, the culture of fear, and misguided self-protectionism. In fact, the acts of the paranoid, weaponbuilding Admiral Marcus do often feel like we’re in the Mirror universe, only without the goatees and eyeliner, and are posited as a direct response to the events of the 2009 film.

The very idea of the Kelvin timeline is a continuing MacGuffin, Into Darkness is a commentary on the differences in continuity, with a steady stream of references to Wrath of Khan, and constant self-aware deviations from the Prime reality.

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From supporting character to plot-driving central figure, Klingon warrior Worf quickly made his presence felt in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and has appeared in more Star Trek episodes than any other character. Star Trek Magazine caught up with Michael Dorn, the warm and convivial actor beneath the latex forehead, to find out how it all began for the Son of Mogh. Words: Ian Spelling ichael Dorn’s mantra, for many years, has been this: Thanks to his decade-plus playing Worf in Star Trek series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, he doesn’t need to work, but he likes to work. More than that, he loves it, especially when the role offers an acting challenge and the project doesn’t require months and months of 16-hour days. So, he’ll make a cameo for a friend or play a recurring role, and he’ll do voiceovers for animated series or lend his support to a proposed Web series, which explains how such recent projects as Ted 2, Con Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Internity (a pilot with Marina Sirtis) wound up on his IMDB filmography.

“You know, it’s funny, but when I did Castle, those six episodes, that to me was a good time,” Dorn says, referring to his recurring part as Dr. Carter Burke, Beckett’s therapist on the romantic drama, which ended its run in Spring 2016. “I loved it. The part was great. It wasn’t a huge part, but it was recurring, and the guy was a psychiatrist. I liked that. And also, it’s become apparent that the business has changed. I have no idea what’s coming up next for me. But I like roles like that.”

Before CBS announced their new take on TV Star Trek, Dorn had been developing a proposal for a series based around his gruff but much-loved Klingon.

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INTERVIEW: MICHAEL DORN “There’d been a push for a Worf series, and that would’ve been great,” Dorn says, “but since CBS decided to do their own show, the Worf spin-off seems to be in the outgoing file, so I took the basic story, did a page-one rewrite, and I wrote a science fiction show with that Gene Roddenberry feel of space travel, of going out there and discovering stuff. But there’d be no Star Trek, and not a lot of aliens. I’d want to star in that. That’d be more work than I’m doing now, but that’s fine. Hopefully it’ll be on cable, meaning there’d be more artistic freedom. Since they do fewer shows per year, you put more into each show, and I like that, too.”

HIGH FLYING KLINGON

Worf providing the muscle for yet another Away Team

In fact, Dorn’s imagination seems to be firing on all cylinders, and he’s enthusiastic about the prospects for another new writing project he’s devised.“The latest thing is a script I wrote a few years ago,” Dorn explains, the excitement in his voice building. “It’s an aviation story, which is my passion. It’s about this Air Force base I visited, and I flew with these guys in Texas. It’s called High Flight. It’s kind of timeless. I’m just doing some script polishing, and I’m talking to the Air Force and another guy who does air-to-air photography. Hopefully, I’ll be pitching it soon. I believe, on an ethereal level, there’s something out there for me.

Something really good’s coming along. You never know, but I feel good about that.”

Dorn, with characteristic cheeriness, still feels good about his time in the Star Trek universe, and his connection with the show now dates back a remarkable – and almost impossible-to-fathom – 30 years. In fact, Dorn played his character more often than any other actor has performed a character in Star Trek’s 50 years. He portrayed

Worf for the entire seven-year run of The Next Generation, appearing in nearly all 178 episodes, and he spent four seasons on Deep Space Nine, logging time in more than 100 episodes. Dorn also brought the Klingon back to life in the four TNG feature films, several video-games, an array of Trek audiobooks and videogames, and most recently for Star Trek Online. He even co-starred as Colonel Worf, a distant relation, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Having also directed three episodes of Deep Space Nine and one installment of Star Trek: Enterprise, Worf has proven to be an acting job that keeps on giving.

“I DO FEEL VERY FORTUNATE, NOT ONLY BEING PART OF IT, BUT HAVING CREATED A CHARACTER THAT REALLY LIVES ON.”

“KLINGONS DO NOT ALLOW WORFISMS THE QUOTABLE KLINGON THEMSELVES TO BE… PROBED.”

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"Offspring"

PLAYING FAVORITES

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ll these years after the fact, Dorn still has his favorite episodes of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

His Next Generation episodes of choice – “The Offspring” and “The Drumhead” – are equally well regarded by most of his TNG co-stars. Of his 100-plus DS9 hours, perhaps unsurprisingly a pair of Klingoncentric episodes written by Ronald D. Moore – “Soldiers of the Empire” and “Once More Unto the Breach” – are the ones he rates best.

“In terms of showing Klingons in a different light than we’d ever seen before, I thought they were great,” Dorn praises.

“And there was some really, really good acting going on in those shows. ‘Once More Unto the Breach’ had John Colicos in his final performance. He died right after that. ‘Soldiers of the Empire’ had David Graf, who’s [also] passed away, who was great, and Rick Worthy, who’s in The Magicians now. It was directed by Levar [Burton], who turned into a wonderful, wonderful director. It had Terry and J.G. Hertzler, who was brilliant. In fact, that’s what got me thinking about writing a Worf spin-off, those two episodes.

“The Offspring” TNG Season 3, Episode 16 Data creates an android daughter.

Photo: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

“The Drumhead” TNG Season 4, Episode 21 Picard is put on trial for treason.

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“Soldiers of the Empire” DS9 Season 5, Episode 21 Worf is assigned to General Martok’s Bird-of Prey.

“Once More Unto the Breach” DS9 Season 7, Episode 7 Klingon warrior Kor seeks Worf’s help.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

“At first, when I got the job, I was just happy because I loved the original guys,” Dorn marvels, “I was like, ‘Oh, man, this is great.’ I didn’t think The Next Generation was going to go very long. I thought it was going to go a couple years, and we were going to make some money. I thought we’d be lucky if it went three years. When it was all over and done with, and we’d done Nemesis, the last movie, that’s when it hit me how important our contribution is to the franchise, and how it just is never going to go away.”

As Star Trek passes its half-century milestone, Dorn appreciates that it’s always going to be a part of his life, and he has no qualms about that.

“It’s the original cast’s 50th anniversary this year, and our 30th is next year,” Dorn reflects, “so, here we go again, because we had a big celebration for our 25th. It’s pretty wild. And with the conventions, that’s a job, too.

That’s another way of still being out there, and still talking to the fans. It’s mind-boggling. But I do

Michael Dorn (Inset)

RODDENBERRY FEEL OF SPACE TRAVEL, OF GOING OUT THERE AND DISCOVERING STUFF.” feel very fortunate, not only being part of it, but having created a character that really lives on.

I’m very proud of that.”

NO TOKEN KLINGON Early on in The Next Generation’s run, some fans voiced the sentiment that Worf served as the token alien on the bridge and, worse, that Captain Picard shot him down almost as often as he did Wesley.

Dorn never agreed with that assessment, and for the most part still doesn’t today.

“Not at all,” he insists. “Even when I first started, I never thought of it as being shot down.

At the time, you couldn’t look at it over five years. You couldn’t, in your head, piece together this video where you’re getting shot down 50 times. People have gone and made that video of clips, and when you look at it like that, then,

yeah, he was shot down a lot. But it’s one of those things. When I got the job, they really didn’t know who Worf was, and they gave me no indication. I went to Gene [Roddenberry] after a couple of days and said, ‘Look, what do you want from this guy? Who is he?’ He told me to make the character my own. That gave me the license to create this gruff, surly, not-a-nice-guy character. He wasn’t Mr. Friendly and ha-ha-ha, and laughing with everybody.”

Dorn considered this was the way to go, which made sense because, in Dorn’s words, initially Worf was “all over the place” – not in terms of personality, but in his varied job specification. When other characters left their stations at the conn, he took over; Worf navigated the Enterprise; he beamed down to planets on Away Missions

“KLINGONS DO WORFISMS THE QUOTABLE KLINGON NOT FAINT.”

INTERVIEW: MICHAEL DORN

Michael Dorn as Worf

“CONGRATULATIONS. YOU WORFISMS OTABLE KLINGON ARE NOW FULLY DILATED.” and provided the muscle. Fans will remember that in the Next Generation pilot (“Encounter at Farpoint”), he was the captain of the saucer section. Dorn therefore assumed Worf would become, “the jack of all trades.” Soon enough, though, and in the wake of Tasha Yar’s demise (after Denise Crosby’s departure from TNG towards the end of season one), Worf started to evolve, and he also climbed the ladder in terms of rank and responsibility aboard the Enterprise, ultimately emerging as Security Chief.

“I wasn’t surprised I got more to do,” Dorn observes, “I think they chose the actors, and I like to think that they chose me because I was a good actor. So it wasn’t a shock to them, like, ‘Oh, wow, he’s good.’”

KLINGON JUSTICE

Dorn recalls the moment he knew that Worf was going places. “There was a show, the one where we go down on this planet and Wesley gets us in trouble, and they’re all in these skimpy outfits with blonde hair,” he laughs, remembering first season episode “Justice.” “This really cute girl comes up to me and gives me a hug, because ‘I hug everybody that comes down on this planet.’

She gives me a hug and, while she’s hugging me, I look at the rest of them and say, ‘Nice

planet.’ For some reason, the producers went crazy over that line. They just went crazy. They thought it was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.

“And that was when it started, with the, ‘Well, let’s give him some more,’” Dorn adds, “So they started to write more Worf lines, where Worf would just basically say… something. They’d be talking, and they’d say, ‘Well, Worf, what do you think?’ And he’d give some terse four-word answer.”

Ah, the Worf-isms.

“Exactly,” Dorn confirms. “So that’s where it started. Then, after having me everywhere, they put me in charge of Security after Tasha died.

Interestingly enough, they didn’t want Denise to leave. They just did not want that to happen, because Tasha was becoming a popular character, extremely popular. So, I think they were going, ‘Oh my God. What are we gonna do? Are we going to hire another woman for Security?’ I think somebody said, ‘Wait a minute… Worf! Security.

Security. Worf!’ They just went, ‘Oh my God, it’s perfect.’”

Worf earned his share of dramatic moments, but he stole a lot of laughs, too. Dorn, for one, believes that comedy comes out of drama, and he asserts that, “I wasn’t playing comedy.” The writers, he notes, didn’t necessarily create jokes for Worf. They may have thought they were writing “fairly cute” lines, “but I played it for real, not for comedy, and that brought out the hilariousness of it all.”

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“I DO NOT LIKE SWIMMING. IT WORFISMS THE QUOTABLE KLINGON IS TOO MUCH LIKE… BATHING.”

Lt. (Jr. Grade) Worf ("Encounter at Farpoint")

KLINGON HONOR

Dorn always remained vigilant in order to ensure that Worf’s comedy value never undermined the character, or his Klingon honor. If the writers handed him a cute line, Dorn delivered that line “the way that I wanted to say it.” And he got the result he desired. Other characters – and viewers – would look at Worf, Dorn explains, and think, “Oh, jeez, Worf, lighten up,” which generated

Colonel Worf (The Undiscovered Country)

Speaking of Deep Space Nine, Dorn shocked many people when he agreed to join the Trek spin-off in its fourth season. After all, Dorn made it clear after shooting the final season of Next Generation and then Generations back to back, he only would endure intensive make-up sessions for the occasional TNG feature. Years ago, when addressing what changed his mind, Dorn joked about the dollar signs executive dangled in front of him. ins a different story, ures into it. story is that I was in eo game for a few days,” g to Mission Critical. “I’m ick calls. He goes, ‘Hey, g?’ I said, ‘Hey, Rick. he says, ‘Look, I want to at do you think about pace Nine?’ I went, ‘Oh, says, ‘OK. Well, I’ll get he conversation. So, it an’t tell you why it wasn’t after the show and movie m never going to put that get it. It’s over. Thank son, when Rick asked, ‘Do you want to do it?’ I said, Yeah, sounds interesting.’ that was it.”

TOR 10

Worf and Dorn to the try provided a story publicists a fresh hook

MEDY, AND THAT NESS OF IT ALL.”

Governor Worf ("All Good Things...")

with which to generate features in the media, and helped spike the series’ ratings. The writers, as Dorn puts it, “wrote some wonderful stuff for me, opening up the character and giving him more dimension than he had on The Next Generation.”

Worf’s Klingon heritage always received plenty of attention, especially on Deep Space Nine, where the writers paired him with Jadzia Dax, played by Terry Farrell, with whom Dorn shared a tremendous chemistry.

“I didn’t realize how many scenes, how many shows, focused on Terry and I until I watched a whole bunch of videos this guy put together [on YouTube] of our relationship on DS9,” Dorn admits, “And it was a very, very great and deep relationship. Since we knew each other very well, the relationship you saw on the screen was even more scintillating, and more comfortable, because we were so comfortable with each other.”

Dorn voiced Worf for Star Trek Online last year, and sort of reprised the character in Seth McFarlane’s Ted 2. It makes one wonder how he might react if Bryan Fuller called him up and invited him to return as the character yet again in the new Star Trek series.

“You never say never,” Dorn says. “But it really would depend – and it’s not just Star Trek, it’s anything I do now. My first question is, ‘Can I read the script?’ I’d base my decision on the script, on what it is they want me to do, and ‘What is he going to be?’ and ‘How is he going to be treated in these episodes?’ I’d base my decision on that. I’ve guarded the character for 14 years now (since Nemesis).

So I’m not going to throw it all away just because they say, ‘Oh, would you like to come on the show?’ I’d say, ‘Well, yeah. But what are you going to do?’”

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STARFLEET’S FINEST

Since the days of the seagoing Enterprise, a ship’s Captain has always been both a leader and a symbol. A good Captain makes a happy and successful voyage, while the loss of a Captain is a moral and strategic catastrophe.

Star Trek’s five Captains represent not only their ships and crews, but the diversity of the different versions of Star Trek they call home. Words: K. Stoddard Hayes

W

hat is it that defines a captain as the rock from which their crews are anchored?

Archer’s warmth and optimism reflects the hopes of humans making their first venture to the stars. Kirk, the philosophical warrior, leads humanity’s push farther into the Final Frontier, while Picard, the urbane diplomat, grapples with the complexities of the vast civilization he represents. Sisko’s mercurial temperament flows with the changing winds of war and diplomacy that surround Deep Space 9. And Janeway’s steely resolution and boundless scientific curiosity are perfect for a small ship stranded in the unknown reaches of the galaxy. Very different people, but equals, and unequivocally ideally suited to command.

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THE CAPTAINS OF STAR TREK “CAPTAIN OF THE ENTERPRISE ? DON’T LET ANYONE GET YOU OUT OF THAT CHAIR. BECAUSE WHILE YOU’RE IN IT, YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.” KIRK TO PICARD, GENERATIONS

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CAPTAIN PROFILES //////////////////////

CAPTAIN JONATHAN ARCHER

Commander, Enterprise NX-01 PLAYED BY: Scott Bakula BIRTHPLACE: New York State, Earth, 2112 HOBBIES: Water polo, finding safe planets for Porthos to take a walk.

PET PEEVE: Earth’s self-appointed Vulcan “nannies” treating humans like reckless children who need another hundred years of time out.

HARDEST DECISION: When Phlox discovers that an epidemic illness affecting the Valakians is a symptom of a naturally approaching extinction, Archer is ready to order Phlox to save them anyway. His decision not to play God after all, and to allow the Valakians to die out, is the first step towards the Prime Directive (“Dear Doctor”).

FOOTPRINT ON HISTORY: Without Archer, there would be no Federation. His ability to forge even short-term alliances between feuding races like the Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans leads directly to that grand alliance of worlds.

Kirk (Chris Pine) in the Kelvin Timeline fast-tracks his way to command (Star Trek Into Darkness)

THE PRIDE OF STARFLEET All f th C t i h

t diti

l Starfleet y, then rising There’s no tain – unless he galaxy om cadets hours. And , the first Pike (Star ains two t is an perience that is the shment. ad your hostile race, nsists you’re ar system, en Bow”; and your crew obey an n them rom home housand o-or-die aker”.)

In some ways, the status of the five Captains is very different. Kirk and Picard have both earned, by highly distinguished careers, the plum command of the fleet, a state-of-the-art, battleship class starship, designed both for deep space exploration and for war.

Archer’s prestige is similar, but his risk is much greater. As a pioneer of human deep space exploration, he is given command of the first highwarp capable interstellar Earth vessel, and the thankless job of proving to the skeptical Vulcans, and every other alien race, that humans are ready to reach for the stars.

Sisko and Janeway, when they take their famous commands, are the most underrated in terms of Starfleet hierarchy. Sisko’s new space station command is important only for its strategic location between Cardassia and the newly liberated Bajor. The discovery of the Bajoran wormhole elevates Sisko’s importance in ways no one had anticipated.

Janeway is Captain of a very small ship with an ordinary assignment: hunt down a Maquis vessel in the Badlands. The encounter with the Caretaker changes everything.

Many other ships were carried to the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker, including another Starfleet ship, the Equinox. But only Janeway

STARFLEET’S FINEST

A Captain again (The Voyage Home)

Captain Kirk (William Shatner)

“‘ALL I ASK IS A TALL SHIP, AND A STAR TO STEER HER BY.’ YOU COULD FEEL THE WIND AT YOUR BACK IN THOSE DAYS. THE SOUNDS OF THE SEA BENEATH YOU. AND EVEN IF YOU TAKE AWAY THE WIND AND THE WATER, IT’S STILL THE SAME. THE SHIP IS YOURS. YOU CAN FEEL HER. AND THE STARS ARE STILL THERE.” KIRK QUOTING “SEA-FEVER” TO MCCOY, “THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER” succeeds in bringing her ship and crew safely back home.

One other thing sets Janeway and Sisko apart, not in their world, but in ours. It’s worth mentioning even today, that Star Trek cast a woman and a black man as series leads at a time when black and female action leads were far from common. This happened partly because fans expected their Captains to reflect Roddenberry’s original vision of diversity. Janeway and Sisko changed Star Trek, and television, by showing that leadership can belong to any type of character, not just the stereotypical white male hero.

THE DECIDER-IN-CHIEF

The power of decision is what makes the Captain the main character in each series. The important

story choices nearly always come down to the person sitting in the big chair. We have seen our Captains make decisions ranging from trivial to life and death: anything from ordering “no children on the bridge” (“Encounter at Farpoint”), to activating the self-destruct protocol (The Search for Spock).

Snap decisions are often the most exciting.

Picard raps out the order that creates “the Picard Maneuver,” a textbook tactic in “The Battle.” In “Scientific Method,” Janeway, confronted with the alien scientists’ refusal to leave her crew alone, flies her ship straight between two pulsars to drive them off. Kirk pivots in one shattering instant from running to save Edith Keeler, to stopping McCoy from saving her, in one of Star Trek’s defining episodes, “The City on the Edge of Forever.”

CAPTAIN PROFILES //////////////////////////

CAPTAIN JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK

PLAYED BY: William Shatner Commander, U.S.S. Enterprise, U.S.S. Enterprise-A BIRTHPLACE: Iowa, Earth 2233 (Kelvin timeline: U.S.S. Kelvin shuttlecraft) HOBBIES: Athletic and outdoor activities, collecting antique books. Collecting alien girlfriends does not count as a hobby!

PET PEEVE: Meddling Federation bureaucrats like Ambassador Fox and Undersecretary Baris, especially when their aides are Klingon spies.

HARDEST DECISION: Choosing which officer to send into the giant amoeba – “Dr. McCoy has the medical and biological knowledge. Mr. Spock is better suited physically and emotionally to stand the stress. Both are right, both are capable... and which of my friends do I condemn to death?” (“The Immunity Syndrome”).

FOOTPRINT ON HISTORY: While Kirk is justifiably famous as the commander of the first Five-Year Mission of exploration, his biggest historical contribution is leading the actions that save the Khitomer Conference from a conspiracy. The Khitomer Accords create an enduring peace and eventual alliance with the Klingon Empire (The Undiscovered Country).

CAPTAIN PROFILES ////////////

CAPTAIN JEAN-LUC PICARD

PLAYED BY: Patrick Stewart Commander, U.S.S. Enterprise-D, U.S.S. Enterprise-E BIRTHPLACE: La Barre, France, Earth, 2305 HOBBIES: Horseback riding, archaeology, literature, Ressikan flute.

PET PEEVES: Data giving information down to the nanosecond; everything Q does.

HARDEST DECISION: After his assimilation by the Borg, Picard agonizes over the guilt of having the Borg use his knowledge, and his entire nature, as a weapon to kill thousands of his fellow officers. He almost gives up his commission rather than face such a risk again (“Family”).

FOOTPRINT ON HISTORY: Picard’s biggest contribution happens outside of his own timeline. He and his crew time-travel to stop a Borg incursion on 21st Century Earth, and save Zefram Cochrane’s first warp flight and first contact with the Vulcans (First Contact)

Slower decisions, though, often create intense drama where knotty ethical issues can be explored. Faced with the transporter fusion of Tuvok and Neelix into “Tuvix,” Janeway spends hours debating with her staff and her own conscience, before giving the order that will wipe Tuvix out of existence to restore her officers.

Sometimes the Captain is faced not with one big decision, but an escalating series of little ones as a problem spirals out of control. Picard’s defense of Data’s freedom starts with simply trying to get Starfleet to revoke the order that transfers Data to Maddox’s control. It ends with Picard, as Data’s legal advocate, seeking any defense to refute the crushing prosecution of his courtroom adversary, Riker, in “The Measure of a Man.” Picard’s problem here is straightforward. To him and to us, the audience, Data should clearly have the right of self-determination; it’s just a matter of establishing that right legally. Sisko’s choices are far murkier when he is trying to get the the Dominion, as nlight.” e operation Garak’s plan to mulan leader.

Romulan, knowing minion and join Sisko that the when he asked t to get his own ough only to conscience if ha Quadrant.

Picard (Patrick Stewart) faces the Borg Queen, in Star Trek: First Contact

"The Measure of a Man"

THE BURDEN OF COMMAND

Having to make these kinds of decisions constantly, and too often alone, can make the Captain’s life unbearably stressful. Because of this, the Chief Medical Officer and the Ship’s Counselor are always on the watch to make sure the Captain is emotionally stable.

As Kirk agonizes over his decision to pursue the Romulan ship into the Neutral Zone, and risk a war, in “Balance of Terror,” McCoy has to remind him not to “destroy” himself with the strain. Janeway lives every day with the guilt of sacrificing her crew’s safety to preserve the Ocampa, and the possibility that she may not succeed in bringing them home. It’s a burden that actually drives her into depression at one point (“Night”). And that same guilt leads Admiral Janeway to commit the enormous crime of violating the Temporal Prime Directive to deliver a rescue plan to her alternate self, in series finale, “Endgame.”

STARFLEET’S FINEST

PLAYED BY: Avery Brooks Commander, Deep Space 9, U.S.S. Defiant BIRTHPLACE: New Orleans, Earth, 2332 HOBBIES: Baseball, jazz, cooking.

PET PEEVE: Ferengi and Cardassian schemes, especially from Quark and Garak. However, this may be because Sisko himself is a pretty good schemer.

HARDEST DECISION: Just as Bajor is about to be accepted into the Federation, Sisko starts getting visions from the Prophets. Pulled between his Admiral’s orders and the authority of the Prophets, he turns his back on his Starfleet loyalty and warns the Bajorans that joining the Federation will lead to Bajor’s destruction (“Rapture”).

FOOTPRINT ON HISTORY: Sisko makes First Contact with both the Bajoran Prophets and the Dominion. As a leader of the war against the Dominion he commands many important actions and helps creates essential alliances Sisko (Avery Brooks) defends Deep Space 9

“THERE ARE THREE THINGS TO REMEMBER STARSHIP CAPTAIN: KEEP YOUR SHIRT TUCKED THE SHIP, AND NEVER ABANDON A MEMBER JANEWAY TO NAOMI WILDMAN, “DARK F THE HEART OF THE SHIP

More than just the decider-in-chief, the Captain is the heart of the ship and crew, the source of their ethics, their morale, and their courage. Uhura describes this memorably, in “Plato’s Stepchildren”: “I’m thinking of all the times on the Enterprise when I was scared to death, and I would see you so busy at your command, and I would hear your voice from all parts of the ship, and my fears would fade.”

The Captain’s leadership is such a powerful bond that losing it can sometimes tear discipline apart. After Janeway and Chakotay contract a deadly virus, she puts Tuvok in command, ordering him to leave the two behind and take Voyager home. Tuvok faces near mutiny from the crew until he agrees to disobey her order and return for them, in “Resolutions.”

And finally there’s that moment in Star Trek Into Darkness when the unthinkable happens. The Captain is dead. As McCoy drops into his chair in grief and despair, we see something we’ve never

seen before: the cre close to stare at the

THE MARRYING KIN

Like most Star Trek Captains rarely have Though Kirk is usual that is written into h persona), his many more a product of ty television writing of real instability of ch love is the ship, and to keep him single f The same is tru other shipboard cap few romantic entan notably with Vash, a secret torch for Bev years. Janeway’s lon relationship on Eart the stress of her dis from the Alpha Quad

CAPTAIN PROFILES ///////////

CAPTAIN BENJAMIN LAFAYETTE SISKO

CAPTAIN PROFILES ////////////////////

CAPTAIN KATHRYN JANEWAY PLAYED BY: Kate Mulgrew Commander, U.S.S. Voyager BIRTHPLACE: Bloomington, Indiana, Earth, 2330 HOBBIES: Scientific study, holodeck historical adventures, looking for coffee in the Delta Quadrant (or at least the means to make it).

PET PEEVE: Threats of any kind. She does not respond well to them.

HARDEST DECISION: When Seven of Nine appears to have returned to the Collective, Janeway has to decide whether this is a desertion or an abduction. Then, even harder, she has to decide whether to risk her ship and crew with an incursion to Unimatrix One to rescue a single crewmember (“Dark Frontier”).

FOOTPRINT ON HISTORY: Janeway’s decision to explore the Delta Quadrant, instead of just heading straight home, surely led to scientific discoveries and First Contacts that could still be making an impact far in the Federation’s future. However, her biggest accomplishment in that voyage was the final defeat of the Borg, which needed two Janeways to carry it off (“Endgame”)

Kirk (Chris PIne) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) in Star Trek (2009)

pline, to s at all ut romance forces do e with officer eves her lost mand, ut never d when I began to never again heart is rstand that his is easier with a his chain of er, the fact r officer, was re is also e. Other ished starship ns have had ies, notably Geordi’s

mother, and Matt Decker. Perhaps the perennial single state of the Star Trek Captains is more a matter of personality and choice than of career sacrifice.

BEST OF FRIENDS Despite their romantic shortcomings, all of the Captains share a remarkable capacity for friendship. Each is capable of inspiring lifelong, even life-giving friendship in others. Sometimes the Captains bring close friends with them to their commands (Archer and Trip, Janeway and Tuvok, Sisko and Dax); and these relationships are always worth watching.

However, the friendships that the Captains forge on the ship are even more interesting to watch, especially those that start in conflict.

Since Kirk’s friendships with Spock and McCoy are already established in their earliest episodes, some of the best fun of Star Trek (2009) is seeing the three meet: McCoy with his threat to throw up on Kirk; and Spock with his accusation of Kirk’s cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test. It’s all uphill from there.

Janeway and Chakotay meet as enemies, hunter and hunted; but within a year or two, he becomes as trusted a confidant as Tuvok, and at times, he’s the only one who dares to challenge

STARFLEET’S FINEST Janeway (Kate Mulgrew)

CAPTAIN KICKASS tar Trek’s Captains sometimes go beyond strategic and even physical combat ability to demonstrate pure, intimidating badassery – the nerve and guts and determination to do whatever it takes to save the day. Here are some of their best badass moments:

S

ARCHER VS. SILIK “SHOCKWAVE PART 2.”

Archer not only tricks Silik into bringing him back from the distant future, he ambushes his nemesis from the center of the transporter beam, knocking him on his ass and beating him unconscious. “I said, you’re an ugly bastard!”

KIRK VS. THE ORIONS

Janeway's trusted advisor, Chakotay ("Scorpion")

her when she is evidently wrong, as in “Scorpion,” and “Equinox.”

Kira starts her service under Sisko by telling him, to his face, that she doesn’t trust him or the Federation. Long before the Dominion War starts, she has become essential to him, for her loyalty, her guidance in all matters Bajoran and Cardassian, and for having his back in any fight.

T’Pol is put aboard Enterprise as a Vulcan watchdog, but within a year, she is the one who eloquently defends Archer’s mission to her own Vulcan superiors. Her devotion to Archer even leads her to abandon her people and her career to care for him, in the alternate future of “Twilight.”

Perhaps the best expression of a Captain’s friendship with his senior officers falls to Picard, who has long held himself in isolation because he believed discipline required it. After a lifechanging time-trip with Q in “All Good Things...”, Picard joins their regular poker game for the first time. He slowly looks around at each of them, and murmurs, “I should have done this a long time ago.”

Whether they are leading their crews in battle or exploration, or making decisions too hard for most of us to imagine, whether risking their lives to save the ship or the galaxy, or having a drink with their trusted officers and friends, the Captains of Star Trek represent the very best of Starfleet.

“JOURNEY TO BABEL” Kirk is supposed to be in Sickbay, recovering from a near-fatal knife attack. Instead he stays on the bridge, simultaneously interrogating the spy/assassin and demolishing the assassin’s ship, in a battle that takes mere minutes.

HONORABLE MENTION: Kirk resolves the perennial fan question of “Kirk Vs. Picard” by easily beating the crap out of Soran, who had previously beaten the crap out of Picard (Generations).

PICARD VS. TERRORISTS “STARSHIP MINE” All Picard wants is a nice day off, horse riding. What he gets is a singlehanded contest against a ruthless terrorist cell, as his ship is being swept by deadly radiation. He defeats them with cunning, his intimate knowledge of his ship, and ruthless hand-to-hand fighting – including using his saddle as a weapon.

SISKO VS. THE DOMINION AND THE PROPHETS “SACRIFICE OF ANGELS” With no reinforcements, and no options left, Sisko orders the Defiant into the wormhole to confront the Dominion fleet alone. When the Prophets object to him sacrificing himself, he demands that they act: “You want to be gods? Then be gods! I need a miracle. Bajor needs a miracle! Stop those ships!”

HONORABLE MENTION: Leaving his cherished baseball on his desk as a message to Dukat that he will be back. He can be badass even from light years away (“Call to Arms”).

JANEWAY VS. THE BORG. EVERY EPISODE THEY MEET! She always makes sure the Borg come off the worst, until the Borg Queen can’t even speak her name without hatred.

HONORABLE MENTION: Going full Ripley against an invasion of gigantic flying microbes (“Macrocosm”).

The Enterprise in 1965, ready for its screen debut in "The Cage"

The final frontier was never meant to be a dusty display case at the back of a museum’s basement gift shop, but that’s where the original filming model of the U.S.S. Enterprise looked like spending its final days. With Star Trek’s 50th anniversary approaching, the Smithsonian Museum decided the time was right to restore the classic miniature to its former glory…

Words: Timothy J. Tuohy

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OPERATION: RENOVATE

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im, the Enterprise is 20-years-old. We feel her day is over.” Those words, spoken to Admiral Kirk in The Search for Spock, not only surprised her most famous captain, but sent shivers down the spine of audiences. This magnificent vessel, the flagship of the Federation – decommissioned. Sent to a galactic junkyard. Not the Enterprise! Thankfully, that ignominious fate would never come to pass, as she was heroically sacrificed to save Kirk and company from a band of renegade Klingons. Now lovingly restored, her real-life – pre-refit – incarnation, sits proudly in the National Air & Space Museum’s new Boeing’s Milestones of Flight hall in Washington D.C. Right on time for Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary!

“

DECAYING ORBIT

To boldly exit throug

h the gift shop

RENOVATE THE REAL-LIFE ENTERPRISE REFIT STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Images courtesy of: Doug Drexler, Gary Kerr, Kim Smith, and the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

Donated to the Smithsonian in 1974, long before Star Trek became the multi-media juggernaut fans always knew it would be, the Enterprise studio filming model spent most of its first 23 years in a crate or on display, suspended first from the ceiling in the Smithsonian’s Arts & Industries Building, and then at the National Air & Space Museum, eventually more of a curiosity than a piece of history. Then, from 20002014, she was on display in the Air & Space Museum’s gift shop – in the basement…!

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The Enterprise in pieces

THERE WAS A GROWING REALIZATION THAT THE MODEL WAS SHOWING INCREASING EVIDENCE OF STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS.

Malcolm Collum, a curator at the National Air & Space Museum, shed some light on why the decision was made to restore the legendary model to her original glory, saying that there was no one moment when they decided to restore the Enterprise; rather, there was a growing realization that the model was showing increasing evidence of structural problems. The left nacelle had been famously drooping for many years, but the droop wasn’t serious, and could be fixed with a wooden

NEVER TOO MUCH

O

n September 8th, 2015, a call went out from the Smithsonian for fans far and wide to “check their memory banks for first-hand, pre-1974 images or film of the original studio model of the U.S.S. Enterprise”. As one can easily surmise, the barn door was left wide open.

Malcolm Collum described some of the behind-the-scenes issues that the museum had to deal with. Aside from the

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usual management-related problems, there was a problem in keeping up with a flood of information from people. The project was also more labor-intensive than usual.

Sometimes if you’re renovating an old house, it’s easier to gut the house and start rebuilding from scratch. In the case of the Enterprise, though, they had to be very, very careful about preserving as much of the model as possible.

shim in the loose mortise and tenon joint. A much more serious problem was a crack that developed on the starboard side of the secondary hull.

The museum performed a conservationcondition assessment of the model in 2012, while it was still inside the display case in the gift shop.

The inspection revealed that large chunks of paint were ready to flake off the metal sections of the nacelles and elsewhere, and additional cracks were developing in the secondary hull.

The secondary hull is built like a barrel, and the individual staves were glued together, with no mechanical fastenings. After many years, the glue was beginning to fail, and the weight of the nacelles was threatening to pry apart the secondary hull.

The museum has many artifacts on display, in addition to the Enterprise, and they were competing with her for both conservation funding and display space. Back in 2012, there was no time or money to restore the Enterprise, but the planned renovation of the Milestones of Flight gallery provided the opportunity to restore the Enterprise before she literally fell apart.

So, on September 11th, 2014, the Enterprise was taken off display and transported to the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center,

OPERATION: RENOVATE

UV lighting revealed tiny cracks in the model's paint

in Chantilly, Virginia. In some strange cosmic coincidence, the restoration of the filming model took slightly longer than the 18 months it took for her fictional refit for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS The “Oracle” of the project, a man named Gary Kerr, has been a name on the Star Trek periphery for many years. A self-proclaimed “crazy guy who collects spaceship data,” as well as a “sci-fi archaeologist.” Gary used his vast repertoire of knowledge and networking to help out modelmaker extraordinaire, Greg Jein, by creating a set of blueprints of the Enterprise to be used during production of the excellent Deep Space Nine episode, “Trials and Tribble-ations.”

Where did this almost obsessive love begin?

“I’m old enough that I saw the first showing of the Piecing together the restored model

rst episode of Star rek And ever since, I was collecting every photo, every fan publication and magazine that I could on the subject. It fascinated me.

“One thing I say that I hate is magicians,” continues Kerr, “I don’t like magic shows. They do these wonderful tricks and never explain them. Not knowing bugs me, and there were a lot of questions about the Enterprise that I didn’t have an answer for. To find these answers, the first thing I had to do was unlearn all the stories I had heard about the Enterprise over the years. And just like a detective, you look at all the clues and go where they lead. We’re getting more and more hard, physical evidence, including testimony from eye witnesses, and you go ahead and you build the story of how the model was built.”

Kim Smith restores the Enterprise registration to one of the nacelles

MEMORIES

MARGARET WEITEKAMP “In May of 2015, I was able to bring all of the members of the Special Advisory Committee together for a two-day, in-person workshop at the Udvar-Hazy Center,” recalls project curator Margaret Weitekamp, of setting up her team. “We had the Enterprise, still together, in the lab and on a work stand. As the curator for the artifact, I am responsible for all of the intellectual knowledge around the artifact: for knowing its history, for knowing about its structure, its history of use. I was always very aware that this artifact was so rich in history and so beloved, and there was such a community of folks out there who knew this object so well, that I really needed to tap into that knowledge if this was going to work. Having all those people around the table and starting to talk about things, I was thinking, ‘we can really pull this off.’

And also the patience of those people, who are not museum people, for being patient with the museum people who are deliberately deliberate. For people who come out of the world of television, their bread and butter is making quick decisions.

I thought they were remarkably patient and respectful of the Smithsonian’s process of trying to double-check everything before we actually acted on the model.”

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Above: Testing the saucer section lights Below: Wiring the bussard collector's LEDs

AKE A BOW

Pain-staking attention to detail was spent on recreating the original paint detailing

ary Kerr had not been with the museum’s storation team on location, full time. He was ere for an initial meeting, then regularly undated the museum with emails. He shuttled ck and forth when necessary to lend his acle-ness, but he was there when all things erally came together. “That last Friday were there, is when we said, ‘Okay, let’s it together!’ They sat the nacelles on the

IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN

t has long been assumed that the original Enterprise was painted an overall gray, with varying shades to indicate weathering. Most of that weathering was indeed covered up during the multiple previous restorations. This nearly flat palette is in contrast to the very recognizable “Aztec” pattern that was introduced in The Motion Picture. And what was believed to be a unique Matt Jefferiesapplied paint scheme on the original Klingon D-7 filming model, gray above and green below, may not have been so.

“Another thing we found on the Enterprise, in all this research,” explains Kerr, “is when they were converting the Pilot version into the Production version, they sprayed the upper surface of the saucer with a transparent green shellac. Only the upper saucer. And veteran visual effects expert Richard Edlund (of Ghostbusters and Raiders of the Lost Ark fame) told us that with the 5251 film stock they were using at the time, there was no technical reason to do this. So our question is, ‘Was Matt Jeffries sort of foreshadowing his twotoned Klingon spaceship?’ We don’t have an answer to it because everyone involved is either dead or well into their 80s, and they just don’t remember.”

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Continues on page 74

LOOKS AREN’T EVERYTHING – UNLESS THEY ARE A primary concern among all the members of the restoration team was how should the final product look. Something too clean would look jarring, and just cleaning it up from the state it was in would seem a waste of resources. “Color photos are worthless,” Kerr explains, “if you’re trying to define fine color gradations. You can tell red from blue, but you can’t make any fine distinctions because everything changes [when photographed]. Another problem we found is that [the Enterprise] is mostly painted with lacquer paints and clear dulling shellacs. Lacquers will darken with age, while the clear coats will yellow.”

Even after gently sanding away layers of added paint in an effort to reveal the original color, Kerr found that, “There’s the original paint, except it’s not the same paint as 50 years ago!”

Rather than try to reformulate paint and guess at its original appearance, Kerr tells of the approach they decided on. “We ended up essentially matching the existing paint on the model, so it looks like an ‘Aged Artifact.’ It’s as though they had taken the Enterprise directly from the sound stage and put it in a case for 50 years. The end result gave the ship a naturally aged look while also presenting it in a pristine condition.”

“THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ENTERPRISE THAT I DIDN’T HAVE AN ANSWER FOR.” GARY KERR MEMORIES

KIM SMITH “We couldn’t go anywhere without a badged escort, including the bathroom, which was a few locked doors away,” remembers effects artist Kim Smith of the protection surrounding the model, “Even Smithsonian employees could not pass unless they were certain specific NASM employees.

Margaret Weitekamp, the Curator of the Boeing Milestones of Aviation installation, did not have the proper badge to get into the restoration facility. She once got locked out and had to wander around the building, banging on doors, hoping someone would hear and let her in.”

Members of the Smithsonian's restoration team: (Left to right) Margaret Weitekamp, Ariel O'Conner, Malcolm Collum, John Goodson, Bill George, and Kim Smith

BATTLE STATIONS project of this magnitude and importance required a team of top-notch professionals. Margaret Weitekamp’s official title is “Curator of The Social and Cultural Dimensions of Spaceflight.” She might also be called “Admiral,” for without her steadfast determination and vision, the Enterprise might still be in the gift shop! A fan of the original series, she realized the important role that Star Trek had played in inspiring a generation of scientists, astronauts, and the public.

Once Margaret had secured the necessary funding and permission to display the Enterprise in the new Milestones Gallery, she asked Adam Schneider, a major Trek fan and collector of studio miniatures, to help assemble an Advisory Committee comprised of people who were respected by the Trek community, and were skilled in various areas of expertise. The committee’s members included: Mike & Denise Okuda, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, and John Van Citters, for their Star Trek background and potential access to reference material.

Doug Drexler and John Goodson for their background in visual effects.

A

Adam Schneider, for his experience in restoring over twenty Star Trek miniatures – including the original 22-ft mock-up of the Galileo shuttlecraft, on display at NASA’s Space Center Museum in Houston.

Gary Kerr, for his knowledge of the Enterprise model’s history, and for his hands-on experience with the model in 1991 and 1999.

The Advisory Committee selected some present and past Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) alumni to repaint the Enterprise and replicate some missing parts. Kerr explained, “Bill George, John Goodson, and Kim Smith are longtime friends who worked in ILM’s model shop years ago. Bill is now a visual effects supervisor at ILM, John is a digital artist at ILM, and Kim is Senior Texture Painter at Pulse Evolution. All three of them still love building and painting physical models, and Bill was able to ‘get the band back together’ to put on one more show.”

Keeping things together and documented was Ariel O’Conner, former art Conservator at NASM, and now Objects Conservator at The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery. Sharon Norquest came aboard toward the end of the project after Ariel accepted a promotion!

ORIES

RICK STERNBACH “If I had to pick one moment out of the whole process, it was seeing the ship at the Udvay-Hadzy center, before the actual work got done,” says Sternbach, Next Generation design veteran, “Knowing that the first time I had seen it in person was in a storage area of the museum when I visited in 1974 or so.

Pretty amazing, both times.”

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LIGHTS. CAMERA. WAIT… NO LIGHTS! n trying to decide how to best display the eventual fruits of everybody’s labor, Kerr tells of an unfortunate incident involving another classic spaceship. “Initially Margaret [Weitekamp] wanted to be really careful with the Enterprise, and did not want to damage anything, so basically it was going to just sit in a case. No lights or anything, because of something that had happened before Margaret assumed her present position. The museum had sent the Close Encounters of The Third Kind mothership out on a traveling exhibit. Well, somebody had left the lights on – the original studio lighting – overnight, and it overheated and started to catch fire!”

Clearly, once restored, the Enterprise could not succumb to her own fictional demise, so steps had to be taken to ensure she would last for years to come. “Margaret is very proud that none of her exhibits have burned down yet!” says Kerr with a laugh. “She didn’t want to do that to the Enterprise, but everybody wanted to have lights on it. So, we finally convinced her, and that’s what I think really makes the exhibit now – all the lights (LEDs rather than heat-generating incandescent bulbs) make the ship come alive.”

I

THE VERDICT

DOUG DREXLER “I’ve been tracking the model since it arrived at the Smithsonian in 1976, and I’ve seen it go through three restorations,” says DS9 and Voyager designer Doug Drexler, “The first one – ham-handed, with little thought about accuracy; The second – over-enthusiastic to the point of embellishment! But this current restoration is right down the center. I couldn’t be more delighted. It’s what one would expect from the Smithsonian – beautiful!”

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Color-matching the original paint job

ILM effects supervisor Bill George airbrushing the Enterprise primary hull

secondary hull. John Goodson and I picked up the saucer, and once it was bolted down in place, everyone went, ‘Ooooh!’ It was the first time anyone had seen the Enterprise looking like THE Enterprise since basically 1970. Everybody just stood there, then leaned against the wall, and slid to the floor – and ALL the cellphones came out to take pictures.”

On June 28th, 2016, the restored U.S.S. Enterprise was unveiled, to the adulation of her adoring fans. On July 7th, many of those who made this a reality were at the Smithsonian to see the fruits of their labor. One, Gary Kerr, was notably absent from the festivities. “You really weren’t going to get to see the model with all of the people there, but I’ll find a reason to return. The model

still needs a few tweaks, and if I can figure a way to pick the lock on the display case…”

When asked about how being a part of this made him feel, from seeing Star Trek on TV and now, coming up on 50 years later, to being a part of that legacy, Kerr had a very simple response, “It’s pretty darn cool, actually.

Now you think about it, and it’s ‘Oh, my gosh!

This is semi-historic!’”

Fans will say “Fully historic.”

The Enterprise is on permanent display in the National Air & Space Museum’s new Boeing’s Milestones of Flight hall, Washington D.C. The model is fully lit for 10-minute periods, at various scheduled times from 11am each day.

Compiled by Chris Dows

TOMMOROW’S TECHNOLOGY TODAY

A STAR TO GUIDE US BY Exploration’s future – or Nomadness?

As part of the major sky-mapping Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument development for the Mayall Telescope in Arizona, a team out of Berkeley Lab have devised a prototype robotic system that automatically scans and detects galaxies, quasars, and stars. Entitled ProtoDESI, this experimental cluster of ten thin, cylindrical units will be trialed on the instrument’s focal plate to test their independent motion systems, and ability to get a fix on and then track objects across the sky.

Similar to the active sensor arrays feeding information to astrometrics departments on Starships, the fiber-optic cables built into each element will record a wide variety of astral features faster and more accurately than previous projects. When the full 5,000 units are deployed, the goal is to create the most detailed three-dimensional map of the universe ever created.

THE TREK TECH While ProtoDESI is very much Earth-bound, the next logical step would be to use this approach on an independently operating, unmanned spacecraft. It’s a great idea – until you think about Nomad (“The Changeling”) and V’ger (Star Trek: The Motion Picture).

Both went out into the galaxy with exactly the same idea, but due to pesky (admittedly accidental) alien interference, they ended up wiping out billions of lives between them...

THE DETE Shining a Light On Dark M In a separate department over at the SLAC Nat Accelerator Laboratory, work is progressing o hyper-sensitive “dark matter” detector – that exotic and invisible substance thought to mak up 85% of matter in the universe.

They have produced a scaled-down prototype to test the technology, particularly the creation of a strong and stable electric field, for the full-sized LUX-ZEPPLIN planned for completion in 2020. When it is activated in its underground facility, it will be used to detect (currently hypothetical) Weakly Intera Massive Particles (WIMPs), thought to be a ke component of dark matter.

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LZ utilizes 488 photomultip tubes (PMTs) for signal detect IMAGE COURTESY OF lz.lb

THE TREK TECH Detecting dark matter is one thing – dealing with it is another. Captain Archer might have been pleased with illuminating a nebula with spatial charges in “First Flight,” but the crew of the Enterprise-D had to deal with parts of the ship phasing out of normal space thanks to the Mars Obscura dark matter nebula, during the events of “In Theory.”

U.S.S. Voyager had several problems with nebulae and, in particular, dark matter life-forms, first in “Cathexis,” and later in “Good Shepherd,” where crewmembers were taken over by non-corporeal beings.

AVOIDING EDDIES In Search of Gravitational Waves

It might not look much (see right), but the tests recently passed by the four-pound cube of gold and platinum alloy nestled inside the European Space Agency’s “Laser Interferometer Space Antenna” (LISA) Pathfinder spacecraft, take the ESA one step closer to creating a space-based, gravitational wave observatory. The cube, or ‘test mass’ as it is known, reached the highest ever recorded free-fal speed for a man-made object and is a crucial component in each of the three vessels making up the observatory. With launch planned for 2034, these units must be protected from any movement othe than their orbital trajectories around the sun; only this way can gravitational waves, created by colliding black holes and other violent cosmic events, be detected.

Talking of tremendous acceleration, scientists at Stanford University’s National Accelerator Laboratory have successfully accelerated particles of plasma (super-heated ionized gas) while keeping them tightly focused. Thanks to their development of a hollow plasma channel, the engineering problems of the last 20 years have been overcome. While their ultimate goal is to develop a plasma-driven particle accelerator, the underpinning concept of controlling plasma streams in such a way is not dissimilar to the conduits forming an integral part of warp drives.

The study – and general avoidance – of gravitational eddies was as important to Starfleet as it is to the ESA. Having the same destructive potential as a wormhole, it’s of little surprise starships kept a wary eye out for such eddies. So, too, should Stanford University for Suliban spies – they must have got the idea for the Tricyclic plasma drives that power their stealth cruisers from somewhere...

Photo: CGS SpA

THE PLASMA FACTOR

THE TREK TECH

PTIVE APPAREL

in Uniforms

he University of Missourihlighted the barriers poor ates for people with disabilities. ssarily deliberate zips buttons n the texture of ues for millions out Starfleet un xt Generation on uraging to see t assed as ‘adapti they do not pres e mechanical s, symbolizing nclusive future Roddenberry w g for.

CLOTHES MAKETH THE… KLINGON?

Clothing research from The Netherlands’ Leiden University would do little to improve Worf’s opinion of his Robin in TNG’s “Qpid.” eological study of fabrics has concluded men wore better quality han men, and were ularly important in essing the position and tity of the wearer. It’s wonder everyone’s rite Klingon wasn’t ng merry.

ABOUT CHRIS DOWS

Chris Dows has been involved with Star Trek for over 18 years, writing for Deep Space Nine comics, the Star Trek Fact Files, StarTrek.com and TokyoPop’s Star Trek: The Manga. A regular contributor to Star Trek Magazine for a decade, he gained his PhD in 2007, and lectures in writing at the University Centre, Grimsby.

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By Chris Dows

ESCAPING CATASTROPHE

Abandoning Ship: From the High Seas to Deep Space

R

egardless of how meticulously a vessel is designed, the care with which materials selected and the ship constructed, accidents within hostile environments happen. On an ocean or space-going craft, engineering advances such as watertight or airtight compartments might help buy time for a stricken crew, but when staying aboard is not an option, a different kind of technology takes precedence – that of preserving life.

Like the crews of countless ocean-going Earth ships and aircraft, Starfleet crews have been faced

1765

Dr. John Wilkinson publishes “Seaman’s preservation from shipwreck, disease and other calamities incident to mariners.”

1854

R.N.L.I. Captain J.R. Ward creates a cork vest for lifeboat crews that offers weather protection as well as buoyancy.

with mass evacuation from their vessels on a number of occasions. When there’s no time to beam a crew to safety or deploy shuttles, the last resort is to man the escape pods and get as far away from danger as possible.

In keeping with so many features found on spacecraft, the technology for escaping catastrophe started at sea. The earliest sailing vessels were too small to incorporate separate dinghies, so if disaster struck in the open sea, sailors would cling onto whatever wreckage or cargo that floated, in the vain hope of rescue.

While Leonardo da Vinci designed a lifebelt in the

1873

A modified version of a collapsible lifeboat designed by the Reverend Edward Lyon Berthon is accepted by the UK’s Royal Navy.

c.1900

16th Century, and inflated animal skins were often used to cross stretches of water prior to that, the first personal flotation devices did not appear until the late 1700s, when Norwegian seamen stuffed vest pockets with wood and cork. Manufactured versions were introduced in the late 18th Century with a proposed design by English inventor Dr. John Wilkinson, but the cork lifebelt created by Captain J.R. Ward of the UK’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution saw the first mass-produced flotation device, and it was subsequently made international law that all merchant and civilian vessels should carry them. By the late 1960s, foam compounds replaced cork and kapok, leading to the compact and highly efficient designs we see aboard today’s boats and aircraft.

1928

American inventor Peter Markus creates the first inflatable life preserver, known as the “Mae West,” which is used extensively by the military.

Kapok, a flexible, fibrous material with a natural honeycombed structure, begins replacing cork as it allows upright flotation.

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1944

Delanco’s unsinkable, fully covered, motorized proactive lifeboat is deployed, forming the basis of lifeboat design for the rest of the century.

TREKNOLOGY

REW OF APOLLO 13 FAMOUSLY USED THEIR LUNAR ULE TO RETURN TO EARTH, BEFORE JETTISONING IT AND LANDING SAFELY. It took the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1915, with the loss of 1,500 lives, for legislation covering lifeboats to be calculated on the number of passengers and not the tonnage of the vessel. Independent, rigid lifeboats had been developed throughout the 19th Century, along with methods of deployment via telescopic booms (davits), or pulley and line systems.

(ACRV), went through several designs before it was decided to keep a Soyuz spacecraft permanently attached to the station in case of emergency.

SURVIVAL STATS Maximum survival time in open ocean at 32° F or below:

ORBITAL ESCAPE

The sinking of the Titanic

To save space on the decks of passenger liners, collapsible lifeboats, such as the Berthon Boat, were refined and extensively deployed, but up until World War II, virtually all lifeboats were open to the elements. Following great loss of life during the Battle of the Atlantic, the US Navy challenged manufacturers to create a lifeboat that was not only enclosed but was self-righting, and as unsinkable as possible. Delanco, a company

2008

based in New Jersey, won the contract. In addition to this advance in lifeboat technology, automatically launching balsa wood life-rafts were also created – although these were superseded by auto-inflating, heavy duty rubber dinghies. Most modern naval evacuation systems are based on these two designs; with the exception of freefall launching systems on bulk carriers and oil rigs, the weakness still remains the time it takes to deploy them.

Early spacecraft featured very few escape systems. Other than the rocket-powered launch escape systems on top of NASA’s Mercury, Apollo, and Orion capsules, once the craft were in space, there were no other alternatives. The crew of Apollo 13 famously used their Lunar Module to return to Earth, before jettisoning it and landing safely, but it was more by luck than design that it operated so well. Early versions of the Space Shuttle included ejection seats, but these were dispensed with in favor of the crew bailing out of the underside of the ship with parachutes, in the same way bomber crews did during the second world war. Even then, this was only possible within Earth’s atmosphere – in orbit, other than waiting it out for a few hours in a space suit, there were no other options.

A dedicated lifeboat for the International Space Station, the Assured Crew Return Vehicle

Maximum survival time in space without a suit:

15 3.5

MINUTES MINUTES

All Starfleet vessels have included some form of single or multiple occupancy escape pod since the very first warp-capable ships. From the NX-class experimental design through to Sovereign-class starships, larger units are capable of travelling at sublight speeds, and can support life for several months. Smaller units, such as the one the Kelvin timeline James T. Kirk is ejected to Delta Vega in, are capable of withstanding the stresses of atmospheric re-entry and a hard landing without harming the occupant. With survival gear, emergency rations, and locator beacons also on-board, they truly are life-preservers.

Photo: Roman Korotkov / Shutterstock.com

MAN THE LIFEBOATS

2015

2233

2367

The crew of the ISS use the attached Soyuz spacecraft as a ‘lifeboat’ while dangerous space debris passes close by the station.

Following a devastating surprise attack by crazed Romulan Nero, the crew of the U.S.S. Kelvin abandon ship while First Officer George Kirk covers their escape.

Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Sisko ejects from the catastrophically damaged U.S.S. Saratoga at the Battle of Wolf 359.

The Oasis of the Sea luxury liner features the CRW55 mega lifeboat, capable of taking 370 people to safety.

2263 (Kelvin)

Captain James T. Kirk is forced to declare an evacuation of the U.S.S. Enterprise only half way through their first five-year mission.

Photo: Ruth Peterkin / Shutterstock.com

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reviews BOOKS - COMICS - COLLECTIBLES

PREVIEW

POINTING THE WAY IDW’S STAR TREK ANTHOLOGY

It’s Star Trek’s 50th anniversary and many companies are pulling out all the stops to celebrate. IDW Publishing, which has been home to the franchise’s comic book adventures since 2007, is no exception.

Editor Sarah Gaydos, reveals their plans to commemorate the milestone with six-issue anthology mini-series, Star Trek: Waypoint.

Words: Bryan Cairns

“

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he reason I wanted to do an anthology book, even though anthology books sometimes have a rough time in the market, was that there’s so much of Star Trek,” says Star Trek: Waypoint editor Sarah Gaydos, “You talk to people and they are like, ‘I want a Voyager series. I want a Next Generation series. Why don’t you have one?’ And, frankly, there’s just not enough time in the day. I wanted to find a way to be able to talk to everyone.

“I talk to so many creators that are like, ‘Oh my God. I love Star Trek. I would love to write or draw something, but I’m totally swamped,’” Gaydos continues, “This is also a way I can get people that don’t really have the time to do a STAR TREK MAGAZINE

mini-series or a monthly series for me, but still really want to contribute. That way, I’m able to get some different, new, exciting voices, too. I want this to be a big celebration of the past and future of Trek.”

One of the early challenges was coming up with a tagline that encapsulated Gaydos’ vision.

“I was thinking about where Star Trek has been, and where it’s going,” explains Gaydos, “A waypoint is like a point on the map. ‘Here’s a point on the map where we’re going. Here’s a point on the map where we’ve been.’ That’s where waypoint came from.’”

Gaydos notes there were so many amazing pitches that each Waypoint issue includes

two, self-contained stories. However, readers shouldn’t expect Spock to team up with Data, or Archer to strategize with Riker, any time soon.

“Everybody loves a crossover, but for this, I didn’t really want to do that,” explains Gaydos, “I want to celebrate the shows as they are. I want people to be writing stories about what makes Voyager great, or what makes Next Generation great. I love crossovers, don’t get me wrong, but so much [time] can be taken up with a nine-hour explanation of how the crossover is even possible.

Things can get very complicated. I’d rather these stories be about what makes Trek great.

“These stories are not necessarily going to be locked into rigid continuity, though,” Gaydos

TRICORDER

Sarah Lanz contibutes an Uhura story to Star Trek: Waypoint

continues, “Each one is going to be different. For example, in issue #1, the story by Donny Cates shows Captain Geordi La Forge, and he’s on a ship with Data, but it’s a hologram of Data. Data is projecting this hologram to make his space-bro Geordi feel more comfortable. Waypoint gives people the opportunity to do some weird and interesting stuff.

“There will also be stories that could be an episode of a series,” Gaydos says, “Sandra Lanz’s story is one of those. It has a really classic feel to me. Her story centers around Uhura. It starts in the middle of the story. She’s on a planet.

Something went wrong. No one else beams down.

She’s alone and encounters this alien. They have this interaction here. They learn from each other how to communicate, and it’s great.”

The talent pool runs deep for Waypoint.

Gaydos couldn’t name all the creative teams, but the first issue features the works of Cates, Lanz, and Mack Chater.

“What they bring to the table is a bit of an indie sensibility,” says Gaydos, “There are a lot of current and new sci-fi voices out in the world. That’s something I do want to bring to Waypoint, in addition to the classic sci-fi voices that we’re hearing, too. I want this to be a big-tent approach. They bring their incredible geeky fandom of Star Trek, but then also that indie flavor.

“In the celebration of where Trek comic books have been so far, all the subscription variants are going to be artists from Trek past,”

“I WANT TO CELEBRATE THE SHOWS AS THEY ARE.” she adds, “I’m reaching back as far as I can possibly go, even past the IDW run. That can be a lot of fun, because I’m being able to talk to folks who worked on Trek comics over the decades. The first cover is by Mark Buckingham.”

Over the years, Gaydos has developed numerous Star Trek projects, and is clearly extremely proud of IDW’s contribution to this sci-fi legacy.

“I feel like we’re being able to talk to more people, and more different fans of Trek,” Gaydos

concludes, “There are so many different ways we can go with it. We have Academy, which is a more young-adult approach to things. We have our J.J. Abrams Trek book, which is speaking to the current movie-verse. We can then also do ridiculous stuff, like the team-up between original series Trek and Planet of the Apes, and it works fabulously. I’m just so lucky to be able to play in this sandbox. I’m very proud of where it’s been.”

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Boldly going where no Star Trek Magazine writer has gone before, Ian Spelling enrolled with Starfleet Academy to bring you this very special end-of-term report…

STAR TREK: THE STARFLEET ACADEMY EXPERIENCE Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York t’s an almost surreal experience, right from the get-go.

In the heart of New York City, on the Hudson River, sits the iconic USS Intrepid, a massive aircraft carrier launched in 1943 and decommissioned in 1974. Today, she’s the crown jewel of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, where, all around her, deep inside and on the deck, visitors can check out her sleeping quarters, not to mention artifacts, helicopters, airplanes, space vehicles… and

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now the final frontier too, as the Intrepid plays host to Star Trek: The Starfleet Academy Experience, which opened in July 2016 and will run until October 31st.

The Starfleet Academy Experience beckons visitors to the 26th Century, immersing you in the Star Trek universe as if you’re actually there.

After queuing up, receiving a nifty RFID device (Radio-Frequency IDentification) that’ll come into play very soon, and inputting my name and email into a terminal, I pass displays that offer

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Treat Klingons in the Sick Bay

Can you beat the "no-win" scenario?

a quick history of Star Trek as a real-world entertainment entity, familiar to longtime fans, but informative to newbies. Then, on the wall, I see an in-universe Star Trek timeline that hits on events spanning from World War III (as referenced in First Contact) to the end of Nemesis.

Next, it’s on to the really cool stuff.

Essentially, I’m enrolled as a cadet for orientation, and for Starfleet to determine my future role. Am I command material? Medical?

Engineering? You get the idea. All around are the various zones devoted to each specialty. I practice Klingon at one station, answering to a young Klingon. I take a Species Selfie, posing for a photo which superimposes alien features over your own. I go Andorian, with a blue face, antennae, and funky ears, but you can choose to

Phaser Training

“IN KEEPING WITH THE ENTERTAINING IN-UNIVERSE THEME, THESE ARE ‘ARTIFACTS’: WILLIAM SHATNER DIDN’T WEAR THAT UNIFORM, CAPTAIN KIRK DID.” transform yourself into a Vulcan, Borg, Ferengi, or some transporter malfunction mash-up of them all.

TOUR OF DUTY

Costumes, ship models, and props from Trek movies and shows are on display throughout the

12,000 square feet of The Starfleet Academy Experience, but don’t call them costumes, ship models, and props – in keeping with the entertaining in-universe theme, these are “artifacts” from the future: William Shatner didn’t wear that uniform in The Wrath of Khan, Captain Kirk did.

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Learn how to open hailing frequencies

Visitors are able to wander where they choose, at their own pace, and there’s no requirement to do everything – the system won’t hold it against you later. I watch with a smile as fellow cadets attempt to diagnose two ailing Klingons in Sickbay. Elsewhere, I manipulate ship holograms with my RFID device, and try my hand at navigating the Enterprise around planetary gravitational pulls and hostile Birdsof-Prey. Fortunately, I guide the Enterprise to her destination safely. Then, it’s on to Phaser Training, which resembles a hybrid of those two classic arcade games Asteroids and Missile Command. Armed with a hand-held phaser, I scored a pretty impressive 22.

I also take part in quizzes at various terminals, and check out the “Wall of Fame” that features Starfleet’s finest in each zone.

Hoshi Sato and Nyota Uhura headline the fun and informative summary of communications officers, for example.

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Beam aboard the Transporter

BEAM ME UP

I then make my way to the true highights of The Starfleet Academy Experience – the Transporter, and the Kobayashi Maru test.

The Transporter is just brilliant. I step into a booth-like contraption, wait for the countdown, quietly murmur “Energize” to myself, and peer out at what look like tubes… And there I am,

wrapped in energy, slowly beaming off to whoknows-where.

Even better is the Kobayashi Maru. Entering a high-quality replica of the Enterprise-D bridge, I find a captain’s chair and eight Kobayashi Maru stations, crewed with visitors.

We must navigate a crisis involving an enemy attack on another ship (that same nice guy who

Take the captain's chair

taught me Klingon is now a cranky baddie!) Do I attack or try to save the crew on the other ship? I laugh when I hear a fellow cadet, who’s probably 12-years old, bemoan that he’s “taking critical hits.” Our ship suffers a fatal blow, and the system reveals that, while I was tremendously aggressive, I didn’t show enough compassion. such is the nature of the no-win scenario.

END-OF-TERM REPORT

At the end, and before I peruse the store filled with Trek and Intrepid merchandise, another

Take some Trek home with you

“THE STARFLEET ACADEMY EXPERIENCE BECKONS VISITORS TO THE 26TH CENTURY, IMMERSING YOU IN THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE AS IF YOU’RE ACTUALLY THERE.” terminal reveals my results. I’m assigned to the Command division (my first choice, by the way).

I smile proudly, and with the press of a button, I can have the report sent to my email. A short time later, there it is, under the subject line “Your Starfleet Academy Experience” – with my Starfleet

Recruitment Certificate, Starfleet Personnel File, Species Selfie and Transporter Video. I’ve watched that crazy video a dozen times already.

I ventured in on a weekday, in the morning, which is ideal for minimal lines/waits. The Starfleet Academy Experience gets busy, so time your visit accordingly to minimize any assles and maximize the pleasure. Oh,and ere’s tons more to do on the Intrepid, cluding a chance to check out the fully stored Galileo 7 shuttlecraft from the original tar Trek series, so consider making a day of it. nd now, please excuse me while I watch y Transporter video again.

DATACORE STAR TREK: THE STARFLEET ACADEMY EXPERIENCE Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum Pier 86, W 46th St & 12th Ave, New York, NY 10036 intrepidmuseum.org Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottowa. casmuseum.techno-science.ca

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STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES “MIASMA” By Greg Cox • Simon & Schuster / E-book Exclusive

F

or readers who are happy to have extraneous subplots stripped away in the interests of brevity and pacing, Greg Cox’s new Star Trek e-novella “Miasma” is worthy of your attention. Coming in at under 100 pages, Miasma is a concentrated, punchy, action-filled read, perfect to be devoured in a single sitting. In that respect, it reads very much like a classic 50-minute episode of the original series.

Set between the events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, “Miasma” chronicles the Enterprise-A’s response to a mysterious alien communication, which may or may not be a distress signal. Spock, Bones, and Chekov head up a six-person away team on the shuttlecraft Galileo, but quickly run into difficulty in the planet’s turbulent

atmosphere. Forced to make an emergency crash-landing, the landing party suffer serious injuries, and are stranded with no ability to contact the Enterprise.

Keen-eyed fans may get a sense of déjà vu reading the synopsis, which has striking similarities to the classic episode, “The Galileo Seven.” Indeed, the parallels between both missions are commented on by the characters. The juxtaposition of both missions, 25 years apart, adds a wonderful commentary on just how far these characters have evolved.

The changes in Spock are particularly notable: his previously cold, rational, and logical demeanor in the original episode has given way to a wiser, more well-rounded and mature presence here.

Cox balances the perils on the planet with the re-introduction of Saavik, back on

the Enterprise. Far from a perfunctory cameo, Saavik has a crucial role to play in the story, and her presence feels somehow… logical!

A wonderful, bite-sized read.

Reviewer: Adam Walker

STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES “THE LATTER FIRE” By James Swallow • Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books

B

etter known for his forays into 24thCentury Star Trek literature, British author James Swallow picks up the original series baton with “The Latter Fire.” The novel takes lace sometime

clash of cultures between the Syhaari and a neighboring species.

Swallow has woven a rich and nuanced tapestry here, delicately integrating themes of moralit , ethics, re udice, racism, fear,

be ye Se wi Ar

th cr th ro wi En de Ki Pr le ap st

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he novel fits seamlessly e integration of newcomers M’Ress, will give fans of s a kick: both characters ke and – crucially –threeg a definite jump from artoon personas. ker

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STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE “Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code” •

By Christopher L. Bennett • Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books

S

tar Trek: Enterprise’s “fifth season” embarks on its next chapter under the guidance of continuity hawk Christopher L. Bennett, with “Live by the Code,” the fourth instalment in Bennett’s “Rise of the Federation” series.

Picking up where last year’s “Uncertain Logic” left off, we’re left picking up the pieces from the introduction of the Ware – a form of automated intelligence which has the ability to fast-track the advancement of primitive cultures through the subjugation of a select few.

While T’Pol and Reed continue their seemingly desperate mission to put a stop to the Ware, Archer is confronted with evidence which makes Starfleet question whether their best intentions may be paving a road they’re unprepared to go down. Encountering a widespread alliance of worlds known as the Partnership, Starfleet is quickly forced to consider the flipside of the Ware’s influence: without it, the Partnership would never have been able to evolve or prosper.

Meanwhile, the skullduggery of Klingon internal politics threatens to envelop the nascent Federation, as rival Houses vie for power and influence across the Empire, and victims of the Qu’Vat Augment Virus face bigotry and discrimination from their “pure Klingon” counterparts.

While many authors would be content basing a book solely on the material above, Bennett has made a name for himself thanks to his ability to juggle an ever-increasing number of plotlines and threads of canon at once. “Live by the Code” is no exception, as we are also treated to a Denobulan family drama which shines a

"Dear Doctor"

fresh light on the racial tensions species and their neighbors, the the standout Enterprise episode At the same time, tantalizing ne puzzle to several ongoing backg points continue to drop into plac the omnipresent Section 31, and relationship between Trip and T’ Enterprise’s relaunch releas confined to an annual cycle, but thought out, well-characterized as this, it’s more than worth the Highly recommended.

Reviewer: Adam Walker

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STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES “Elusive Salvation” By Dayton Ward • Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books

E

ver the fan of a good time-travel romp, Star Trek scribe Dayton Ward revisits the fun he had with 2013’s “From History’s Shadow,” bringing many of the elements back which made that novel so unique. The result: “Elusive Salvation,” a cleverly crafted ode to Trek history which weaves in an out of an impressive number of events, both on-screen and from the vault of Star Trek novels past.

Admiral Kirk receives urgent orders to intercept a vessel detected entering Earth’s solar system. After establishing communication, Kirk discovers that the pilot is an emissary from the mysterious Iramahl, who claims that he’s searching for members of his species who are believed to have crash landed on Earth, centuries earlier. The search is made all the more urgent with the news that the lost aliens may hold the key to saving the entire Iramahl species from extinction.

Turning up nothing on present-day Earth, Kirk and Spock instead travel to 1970, to enlist the help of Roberta Lincoln for signs of the alien visitors.

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Feeding off America’s fascination with UFOs, “Elusive Salvation” accomplishes the rather impressive feat of traversing four centuries of history, in a temporal manhunt which takes some interesting twists and turns along the way. As the alien refugees slowly move out from their initial crash landing site in the Arctic, they attempt to blend in with the native human population. Their resulting journey through history allows for some rather chance encounters with characters from Star Trek’s past, including several cameos that fans of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise are sure to enjoy.

Ward captures the quintessentially impulsive aspect of Kirk’s personality, and blends it with spies, little green men, and an atmosphere that wouldn’t feel out of place in an episode of The X Files. What’s more, you don’t need to have read 2013’s “From History’s Shadow” in order to thoroughly enjoy this latest time travel caper.

Reviewer: Adam Walker

Benjamin Maxwell (Bob Gunton) in "The Wounded"

STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE “Force and Motion” By Jeffrey Lang • Simon & Schu uthor Jeffrey Lang makes a return to the Deep Space Nine range after 10 years away, temporarily unseating David R. George III from the hot seat, so fans shouldn’t be surprised that his first steps into the relaunch continuity are somewhat tentative.

“Force and Motion” is a character study, focusing on O’Brien and Nog, along with the allegedly rehabilitated Benjamin Maxwell (from Next Generation episode, “The Wounded”.)

Almost twenty years after Benjamin Maxwell’s spectacular fall from grace, brought about by his wilful destruction of two Cardassian warships which led to the deaths of over 600 crew members, the former Phoenix captain is finally a free man. Maxwell now finds himself stationed at Robert Hooke Station, surrounded by any number of questionable characters, from screwball scientists to shady crackpots. As Chief O’Brien and Nog take an opportunity to pay a visit to the Chief’s former captain, they realize that they’ve stumbled into a disastrous crisis involving the escape of a mysterious creature from the station, resulting in a devastating hull breach.

Despite the Deep Space Nine label, and the appearance of O’Brien and Nog, “Force and Motion” remains very much a Benjamin Maxwell story. Featuring a healthy dose of heady thematic devices, such as redemption and friendship, unfortunately the novel gets bogged down in a series of uncoordinated flashbacks

A

telling Maxwell’s backstory, which feel disjointed and somewhat abstr Setting such issues aside, there’s ce a lot of good subject matter here, a paced well – the insights into Maxw incarceration are particularly well w Lang captures the relationship betw and O’Brien perfectly.

Reviewer: Adam Walker

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MAKING SENSE OF THE FUTURE IN…

With

Larry Nemecek Confused about canon? Struck by a continuity conundrum? Then our resident Trexpert, Larry Nemecek, is here to help. Contact us at: startrekmagazine@titanemail.com, or via larrynemecek.com com, or @larrynemecek on Twitter.

A crew of two, in "One"

Stealing the Enterprise, in The Search for Spock

CREW CUT In The Search for Spock, the Enterprise flew into deep space to rescue Spock with only the original series stars aboard (Kirk, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, and Bones), but how could they fly the ship alone, when in the Voyager episode “The 37’s” Chakotay told Janeway that their smaller ship couldn’t fly with “less than one hundred” crewmembers?

JON BRUNETTE BROOKLYN PARK, MN Voyager is said to be crewed by about 150, while the Enterprise refit has its famous 430+ aboard.

But we are looking at different eras here, and very different goals.

For Kirk and crew, Genesis-bound to retrieve Spock on the sly, they needed only get

to the Mutara Sector undetected – and their ace in the hole was miracle-worker Scotty, who can jury-rig anything… especially with only five crew aboard who are not demanding much in the way of luxury. A mostly-empty starship doesn’t require so much life-enhancing effort, after all.

Plus, of course, Scotty “didn’t know we’d be goin’ into battle!”

Poor Voyager, on the other hand, was trying to cruise homeward, through who-knows-what perils, for 70,000 light years, with a long and unknowable trek ahead, and the need for a lot of buffers against future unknowns – including, morbidly, the prospect of an ageing crew. Let’s liberalize our definition of “fly,” shall we, and agree that since he could not be prescient, Chakotay was merely being prudent!

Then again, how’s this for a continuity

calamity? A few years later (in the episode “One”), Voyager traverses 110 light-years through a radioactive, Mutara-type nebula, with only two active crew up and about, not holed-up in stasis-tubes: Seven of Nine and the Doctor!

So, who wants to tell Chakotay what he can do with his cautious prognostications, then?

PHASER FLAW They don’t have a weapons locker on the bridges of the Enterprises or Deep Space 9, do they? In all those times someone invaded the bridge, they never had phasers stored there. I remember people storming the bridge without them having any defense like that.

ERIN BLACKWELL VIA EMAIL If you go back and consider it, the bridge of the various Enterprises and other “hero” ships of Star Trek were very rarely “stormed” by way of actual physical assault. Adversaries who chose a tactical assault usually used either a stealth approach (such as Khan’s use of gas in “Space STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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The Animated Series BDS

Seed,” or the unnamed Ferengi doing the same on the NX-01 in “Acquisition”), or an unfettered hit-and-run (such as the Borg kidnapping of Picard in “The Best of Both Worlds”).

Phasers tended to be a regular presence on the bridge, attached to armed security officers stationed there – especially in times of high alert, such as in Kirk’s era – or by regular, trained duty officers who always carried one size or another, as clearly Worf and Tasha do in The Next Generation pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint.” Janeway’s beleaguered Voyager might have the mostbreached bridge we’ve seen, but Security Chief Tuvok and Tom Paris are often seen to keep sidearms at the ready at their stations, so although not in aired canon, it might be a standing order of Janeway’s for her crew to pack a piece, given the generally chilly

reception they’d often receive while plowing homeward through the Delta Quadrant.

Having said that, nearly every subsequent bridge design we’ve seen is layered with removable access panels – the lateral panels port and starboard on the Enterprise-D bridge, for example – as well as adjacent chambers, such as the airlock just aft of the refit bridge seen in The Motion Picture, where sidearms could and would likely be stowed. Or behind the access panels that line practically every corridor in every starship class seen since the 2270s. It makes sense, given that we’ve seen phasers stored everywhere, including Sickbay (during Dr. Crusher’s time), and even the galley in Star Trek VI! What was perhaps the biggest design flaw in bridge defense came with the original, when fans often derided Kirk’s bridge for having only one exit (and, thus, only one turbolift shaft)! Many of them forget that among the “fixes” intended with the Star Trek: The Animated Series, deemed canon in recent years, is the addition of a secondary door just port of the main viewer. According to some fun sources, like the original Franz Joseph Enterprise blueprints, there’s not only a circular emergency exit corridor just outside, but a restroom door as well!

In fact, the animated show took things to the next level: superseding a need for a weapons locker with the automated “Bridge Defense System”: a turret studded with numerous phaser emitters, hanging from the bridge ceiling like half a disco mirrorball, computer controlled with a 360-degree sweep of the chamber. Introduced in the opening episode, “Beyond the Farthest Star,” the halfhour script even uses the acronym BDS, and notes it would be used in future stories – though it never appeared again.

Brent Spiner as Noonian Soong

DOCTOR WHO? How can Dr. Noonian Soong be in the TV series Enterprise and also in the Next Generation episode “Brothers”? Wouldn’t that make him over 250 years old? How is this possible?

JEREMY COMER VIA EMAIL It would, Jeremy, if it were Noonian Soong. Give the Enterprise “Augment trilogy” a rewatch, and you’ll find that it’s actually Arik Soong who bedevils Captain Archer in the 2150s – a role cleverly created to be portrayed by Brent Spiner, in the tradition of his roles as Data/Lore/ Noonian Soong. Arik is stated as being the great-grandfather of Data’s creator. The in-joke of the recaptured Arik’s final musings is meant to portray a shift in his future focus – and apparently for his offspring, too – from genetic engineering to artificial intelligence.

DATACORE LARRY NEMECEK Coming from a background in news and theatre, Larry Nemecek now creates his TREKLAND blog and videos, alongside archives at larrynemecek.com, sporting his longtime career as Star Trek author, editor, studio consultant, interviewer, speaker, archivist and even film site tour leader. Producer of documentary The Con of Wrath, and his Trekland: On Speaker remastered interview archives, Nemecek’s “Star Trek: Stellar Cartography” book and maps set is available now from 47North/Amazon.

Brent Spiner as Arik Soong

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CANON FODDER

KLINGON KANON KONFLICT Sometimes the mailbag yields up a question that deserves a more in-depth answer than others – and thus we come to our latest journey into Canon Fodder, with an issue raised by Neil Kammer of North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Neil asks that if the Khitomer Accords first came to pass during the events of Star Trek VI, or 2293 as we reckon it, why is it that “clearly those two governments continue to exchange hostilities until at least the Enterprise-C disappeared?”

I

t’s a good point, right?

That ship’s loss, the focus of the time-loop in The Next Generation’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” is said to have come about when the Enterprise-C went to aid some Klingons – some 51 years later, in 2344 – who were under attack by Romulans at the disputed Narendra III. Add in the fact that, by 2364-65, there’s still

Gowron (Robert O'Reilly)

been no real interpersonal contact between Federation and Klingon crews – showing how distant the two sides remained – and you begin to see the answer here: the Khitomer Accords are, in fact, not a single treaty or document, but an ongoing series of steps that gradually, over a period of decades, finally thaw out the cold war between the two galactic powers.

Following up on the real-world, US-USSR détente metaphor of The Undiscovered Country, that series of Khitomer agreements started very sparingly as well, in an atmosphere of mistrust despite desperation, and came one step at a time.

We even know of at least three Federation ambassadors who worked to negotiate with the Empire – Sarek, Riva, and Curzon Dax – and it’s likely there were many more, probably over two, if not three, generations.

Think of all those US-USSR nuclear testing treaties, the SALT talks, even every arts or sports touring group that wound up causing an international hoopla during the tense, real-world face-off between Earth’s atomicallyarmed superpowers. Or how about the Geneva Convention? No single meeting or conference yielded all that up.

What took so long? Besides the fact that the two sides had been “cheek by jowl” for decades, don’t rule out the impact of outside intrigue and meddling. It’s one of the great ironies of the 24th Century that the Romulans supposedly “withdrew” from Federation contact after the Tomed Incident of 2311, even as they kept up their harassment of the Klingons – and not just over Narendra, but over Khitomer, too. And don’t forget the Cardassians were in the mix as well, with a distracting and I’m sure very sneaky first contact story to keep interstellar affairs muddied.

Still later, around 2375, it also shows how the fear of shapeshifters was so out of control as to nearly drive Gowron and his Empire into paranoid folly, and undo 80 years of progress to play right into Dominion hands – with the Accords totally cast aside for the better part of a year.

So, the “Khitomer Accords” are a project ongoing. Let’s hope it stays that way!

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CAPTIONS LOGGED

Archive images, lost and found…

THE FIRST BATON PASS

H

ere’s one way to mark the 50th, with a look back at the first time we truly had a “change of Generations.”

Sure, it came seven years after the “new” Star Trek debuted – but it was the weird, Nexus-driven meet-up of classic captains Kirk and Picard that truly cemented how Star Trek was now bigger than any one cast or era.

Here’s Patrick Stewart and William Shatner, in a light moment with a documentary crew during the Generations shoot. It’s early June, 1994, and the first Next Generation movie was filming out at the cliffs of Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park, which doubled for the planet where both the Enterprise-D and Kirk would meet their doom – Veridian III.

Is Picard performing a naked puppet show, or are the captains auditioning to be The Muppets’ new Statler and Waldorf? You tell us! Send your Trek caption to startrekmagazine@titanemail.com, and we’ll print the best in our next issue.

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LAST TIME, IN CAPTIONS LOGGED… Caption Logged by RONNIE HEREFORD, Lexington, Mississippi

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