Star Trek Magazine Winter 2016 by Star Trek

SIDDIG DISCOVERY MISSION

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT

KRALL No: 59 Winter 2016

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INTERVIEWS

ALEXANDER SIDDIG TONY TODD KIRSTIE ALLEY

HOW TREK 'S PAST MAY SHAPE ITS NEW FRONTIER

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Classic interviews with the casts of the original TV series, the J.J.Abrams movies, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. Behind-the-scenes secrets revealing the greatest moments in the ﬁfty-year history of Star Trek. Featuring William Shatner, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart, Zoe Saldana, Jeri Ryan and many more!

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397 Stardate: 70

ith prooduction currently (finally!) in full swing, Star Trek: Discovery will bee beaming onto your flat-screen TV in May, 2017. And before you sttart screaming and gnashing your Klingon gnashers, it’s been 50 yeears – what’s a few more months between friends?! Saadly, short of stealing a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and carrying out a da erous sli gshot maneuver around the sun, I’m afraid we’re all going to haav to a on in there, just a little bit longer. (Let e ’ss just hope the first episode doesn’t go out on May 4th, otherwise ar s faans are going to be claiming it’s some kind of conspiracy…!) By cosmic coincidence, May also marks the fifth anniversary of Star ek agazine issue 40. That may not be a big deal to you (or, in all li li ood, anyone else,) but issue 40 – that’s #168 in UK money – was v y rst issue as editor. That’s a five-year mission, right there! e does the time go? That’s what I’ll be telling myself until May… Unlike Jim Kirk, and with Star Trek: Discovery on the horizon, I won’t be a ceptingg a promotion to the Admiralty anytime soon (although editing a magazi e is, technically, a desk job…). Instead, our continuing mission at St T ek Magazine will be to explore the strange new worlds of the new e , to seek out new features, and new interviewees, to boldly go wherre n other magazine can. In t meantime, we’ve got an issue packed with science officers, Kral , a genetically-enhanced doctor, a podcaster, a salt monster, a candy-flavored Klingon, and some mad captains. That should keep you going. ngage… … Buckle up, andd EEngage

HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN!

Christopher Cooper Editor

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

EDITORIAL • Editor: Christopher Cooper • Senior Editor: Martin Eden • Designers: Amazing15 • Contributors: Charles Gray and all at Star Trek Online, Michael Clarke, Chris Dows, Chris Gardner, K. Stoddard Hayes, Rich Matthews, Larry Nemecek, Mark Phillips, Ian Spelling, Bunny Summers, Derek Tyler, Adam Walker, Calum Waddell, and Toby Weidmann. STAR TREK: THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE VOL #1, ISSUE #59 • Special Thanks: Bill Burke, Bryan Fuller (UK #186) • 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 13434

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STAR TREK MAGAZINE

REGULARS

6 STATUS REPORT

The latest Star Trek news from across the quadrants.

74 TREKNOLOGY

Today’s technology inspired by Star Trek, plus the search for alien life.

TWO GREAT TREK 31 WIN! FANSETS PINS 1 WIN! TAAR TREK ANNIVERSARYY BOOK 84 TRICORDER

Trek non-ﬁction authors, plus DSTE and the latest merch reviewed.

93 FISTFUL OF DATA

Trexpert Larry Nemecek clears up your canon conundrums.

97 STARSHIP TREKKERS

Going badly where no-one has gone before, in “Journey to Buble!”

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

OTHER CHARACTER, BUT NOTHING HAS STUCK THE SAME WAY AS STAR TREK HAS.”

18 ALEXANDER

SIDDIG

68 TONY TODD 80 SHORT HOPS: KIRSTIE ALLEY SALLY GIMPEL

CONTENTS

Regular R l N Newss

d Editi dition

EXCLUSIVE Comic S ore Ed dition ition n

FEATURES 12 DISCOVERING DISCOVERY Uncovering the Star Trek pedigree of the Discovery Executive Producer. 24 WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT... KRALL Star Trek Beyond’s big bad gets our Trek-talkers’ attention.

32 HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN

The host of Engage: The Ofﬁcial Star Trek Podcast engages with STM.

38 TIME’S ARROW

Madcap mayhem with the Starﬂeet captains that went off the range.

44 THE BIG FIVE-O: PART TWO Our quest to get to the heart of Star Trek continues.

60 STAR TREK ONLINE Exclusive Star Trek Online short ﬁction.

64 REMEMBER ME

Giving credit to the NBC insiders that kept Star Trek on air.

52 STARFLEET’S FINEST: SCIENCE OFFICERS STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Crowds gather at Birmingham's NEC for the Star Trek cosplay record attempt

A mass Vulcan salute

BEAT THAT DSTE Extends Trek Cosplay Record

he big draw at Destination Star Trek Europe – literally – was the event’s attempt to beat DST’s own Guinness World Record for the number of Star Trek cosplayers gathered in one room. As fans ﬂooded into the Enterprise stage area on Saturday 8th October, it was touch and go as to whether they’d match the existing record of 1,063, even with a last minute push and a ﬂurry of gold, blue, and red uniforms. After a tense head-count,

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

and one of the biggest mass Vulcan salutes on record, the total was in… and 1,138 Star Trek cosplayers cheered their success. “As a team, we are thrilled to improve upon what appears to be our own ‘old’ record,” said Jill Ubdegrove of event organizer, Showmasters, “and to confirm that the European fans lead the way when it comes to cosplay.” Official confirmation from Guinness World Records is expected before Christmas.

STATUS REPORT

Bryan Fuller Beams Away News broke at the end of October that Bryan Fuller would be stepping away from showrunner duties on Star Trek: Discovery, to focus on other projects. While Fuller will continue to be involved as Executive Producer on the new Trek, his commitment to an adaptation of writer Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, led to him stepping down from the day-to-day running of the show. Long-term collaborators Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, who initially joined the show to support Fuller, will oversee the ﬁrst season of the series

in his place, alongside Alex Kurtzman and the established creative team. CBS Television Studios said of the personnel change “We are extremely happy with the creativve direction of Star Trek: Discovery and the strong foundation that Bryan Fuller has helped us createe for the series.” By now, ﬁlming should be well underway, but as this issue of Star Trek Magazine went to press, there were yet to be any cast announcements. Discovery is set to premiere on CBS All Access in May, 2017.

HAIL TO THE (EX)CHIEF And Obama Still Loves Star Trek

arack Obama, former President of the United States of America, was “a sucker for Star Trek” in his youth. In an exclusive video interview with Wired, prior to the conclusion of his final term as President, Obama reflected on why Gene Roddenberry’s groundbreaking show has survived so long, saying “it wasn’t actually just about technology. It was about values and human relationships. It was really talking about a notion of a common humanity, and a confidence in our ability to solve problems.” Obama, who previously invited Nichelle Nichols to the White House, and made a personal tribute to Leonard Nimoy, following the Spock actor’s death, went on to say “If we ever lose that spirit, then we’re going to lose what’s essential about America, and what I think is essential about being human.”

Barack Obama with Nichelle Nichols in the White House

BEYOND BEYOND IDW Boldly Goes On

anuary is another thrilling month across IDW Comics’ Star Trek titles. Issue 4 of its ongoing Kelvin timeline series, Star Trek: Boldly Go, takes the Federation to the edge of all-out war with the Romulans, while Spock has apparently taken to working the Locutus look, if the excellent cover (see above) is anything to go by. See page 52 for our review of the firsst issue of this promising storyline. Meanwhile, 6-issue anthology series Waypoint this month focuses on Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Cecil Castellucci’s “Mother’s Walk” sees Kira on a Bajoran pilgrimage that requires a set number of relatives – only most of hers are long dead. Over in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager is in danger, and it’s the unlikeliest member of her crew that could save it, in Mairghread Scott’s “The Wildman Maneuver.” There’s also another dip into superhero crossover territory, with Kelvin timeline Star Trek once again getting mixed up with Green Lantern. Written by Mike Johnson (the busy writer of Boldly Go), “Stranger Worlds” issue 2 of 6 has the Lantern Corps join forces with Starfleet to battle Sinestro and the Klingons, in an ultimate battle.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

THE ROAD TO RIO

reation Entertainment have announced their first confirmed special guest for 2017’s Official Star Trek Convention – and it’s the legendary William Shatner. Shatner will be on stage on the Saturday of the convention, and available for autographs and photo ops. Fans will be especially keen to get their photo taken with the Kirk actor on a recreation of the original Enterprise bridge. If you’ve never been to one of Creation’s Vegas conventions, a video of hghlights from the 2016 event is available at creationent.com. Gold Weekend Packages for the event have already sold out, and Captain’s Chair Packages are going fast.

THE NEXT FRONTIER New Novels from Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books

s you while away the months until Discovery launches, there will be plenty of new Trek adventures to enjoy, thanks to Pocket Books’ expanding line of novels, each set in a different period of Trek’s expansive history. January sees the release of Christopher L. Bennett’s original series era novel “The Face of the Unknown” – a sequel to classic episode “The Corbomite Maneuver.” This is followed in February by “Headlong Flight,” a Next Generation story from popular author Dayton Ward that lands Commander Worf and his landing party on a dimension-hopping planet. David R. George pens March’s Deep Space Nine adventure, “The Long Mirage,” which ﬁnds Quark still desperately seeking Morn, and Kira returns from two years spent living in Bajor’s past. DS9 alumni Julian Bashir is also back on the trail of Section 31, in David Mack’s taught new thriller, “Control.” Can Julian bring down the illegal spy organization, and at what cost?

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Photo: Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

Vegas Convention: First Guest Conﬁrmed

HI-DEF M’RESS Animated Adventures on Blu-ray

hile the crew of the International Space Station kick back with a copy of Star Trek Beyond, the rest of us can enjoy the high-deﬁnition glory of Star Trek: The Animated Series, remastered on Blu-ray. Released last month, the 4-disc box-set includes all 22 episodes of Star Trek’s “fourth” series. Featuring extras originally found on the 2006 DVD release, including a 240-minute making-of featurette, there are also audio commentaries from producer David Wise, writer David Gerrold, and Michael and Denise Okuda, plus a storyboard gallery and 22 poster-style cards illustrating each episode, created by artist Juan Ortiz especially for this release.

STATUS REPORT

LAST MINUTE SHOPPING Great Trek Gifts This Holiday Season o one wants to unwrap a bottle of discount bubble bath from the local drugstore on Christmas morning, so here are some cool gift ideas for ev ryy ar Trek fan’s sh p lis

DIA AMOND SELECT

PIN MATES Possibly the cutest Star Trek collectable this holiday season is an Entertainment Earth exclusive, but as it’s limited to just 500 units, we may already have missed out! This retro-styled Enterprise bridge playset from Bif Bang Pow! is scaled to accommodate their fun range of 2-inch scale wooden ﬁgurines, featuring the original series crew. Please note, the set is aimed at fans over 14 years-of-age, and is listed as “Not A Toy!” We wouldn’t dream of playing with it. No, Sir. Not until we’ve got it out of the packaging…

In stoores, and available online, is Diamond Select’s stunning ne Bird-of-Prey (see right). As you can see from the company’s rece t tweetted photo, this de-cloaked beauty comes fully lit, windows and ! AAlso available now is DST’s latest Star Trek Select figure – The Reliant’s command chair, with free Khan action figure (I’m sure we g that the right way around – that chair looks mighty comfortable!). Kha comes with numerous arms and legs, so he can shake a choice of fists at KIIIIIRRKK!! (Did w pesky foe “KIIIIIRRKK!!” we get that quote right?)

HALLMARK Baubles are so last century (unless it’s a Dyson Sphere, which is a whole different ball game), and the only decoration any self-respecting Trek fan will be hanging on their tree this year is Hallmarks delicious gold “The Cage” Enterprise. It comes with sound-effects too – Trek’s famous opening monologue and a slice of the theme tune – although confusingly it’s Kirk rather than Pike in command. If gold isn’t your thing, there was also a version in the ship’s traditional white livery available at various conventions in 2016, but you may be able to pick one up aftermarket, from Cyrano Jones if he’s in town. Other tree-friendly Hallmark ornaments this season include Kirk being menaced by the Salt Vampire (pictured in Short Hops, this issue), and a serious-looking Chekov.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

FROM CATWALK TO SIDEWALK Anovos Gets Fashionable hat happens when cosplay is transformed into funky everyday and party wear? We’ll ﬁnd out in late 2017, when Anovos – known for their igh end r lica c s umes – b

out a range of Trek-inspired clothing unlike anything we’ve seen before. Teaming up with cult purveyors of cool geek-wear Gold Bubble Clothing, Anovos will release ffour unique designs that will allow fans

to express their love of Star Trek in spectacular fashion (pun intended). This collection could be the ﬁrst of many, so maybe it’s time to clear out your wardrobe to make way for something more futuristic.

E Q CONTINUUM Celebrating Star Trek Online’s seventh anniversary in early 2017, Cryptic Studios are all set to release their latest Featured Episode, “Harbingers.”

layers join forces with special guest stars from Star Trek, as they investigate the mystery behind in numerous deadly attacks on frontier worlds. There will also be a chance to earn a brand-new starship, s mpete to win a new anniversary Reputation project, and play several new mini-games in which players com cool STO prizes. STO fans will also be pleased to hear that Q will be back in time for Christmas, with his special brand of holiday cheer, and a variety of fun winter-themed games. Returning favorites include the Fastest Game on o Ice, Snowball wconians, in Fights, and the Winter Invasion Queue. Players can defend the Gingerbread Village from the sinister Snow Cones of Conduct, and battle-assimilated Snow-Borg in Tide of Ice. Plus there’s a new game this year – inn Klingon Ice Fishing, players compete with honor to collect tasty candy fish from the frigid lake – if the fish don’t catch them first! Star Trek Online is available now on PC, and on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.

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The captain's chair under construction, as tweeted by Fuller

Ralph McQuarrie's Enterprise concept

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

DISCOVERING DISCOVERY

Photo: Carla Van Wagoner/Shutterstock.com

Despite his departure as showrunner on Star Trek: Discovery, Bryan Fuller’s creative ﬁngerprints are all over the new show. With ﬁve months to go until the series debuts on CBS All Access, Star Trek Magazine looks to Fuller’s résumé for hints as to what Star Trek might look like come May 2017. Words: Ian Spelling

ometimes the stars just align. Case in point: the tapping of Bryan Fuller to beam aboard Star Trek: Discovery, coming in May from CBS All Access. He’s the right man for the job – a hardcore, longtime sci-ﬁ and Star Trek aﬁcionado, still young at 47 years old but also experienced, pretty much universally popular with Trek fans, and a guy who can write action, dark humor, political intrigue, life-and-death examinations, thriller elements, and emotionality equally well. His track record as a creator, writer and producer speaks for itself. Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal were all diverse, provocative, visually stunning, daring, quirky, smart, and well-cast, not to mention thoroughly inclusive. So, who exactly is Bryan Fuller, and in what ways have all paths led him to Star Trek: Discovery?

DAY JOB TO DREAM JOB Born in Clarkston, Washington, Fuller studied at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, prior to transferring to the USC Film School. A fan at the time of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Fuller set out to write for the show. Remember, this was back in the day – the 1990s – when the Star Trek productions welcomed fan submissions. A few fans sold story ideas, and a couple actually contributed scripts. Fuller attended the writers’ workshops that Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore hosted, at Creation Entertainment’s Grand Slam conventions in Pasadena, California.

"Drone" – a high-concept Fuller story

Emotional drama in "Friendship One"

"Mortal Coil" enscapulates Fuller's Star Trek

FULLER’S TREK A potted guide to the Star Trek: Voyager episodes written or co-written by Bryan Fuller.

SEASON 4 “The Raven” Seven of Nine becomes convinced she is being drawn back to the Borg Collective, after suffering strange hallucinations.

“Retrospect” Has Seven been physically assaulted by an arms dealer, or are the Voyager crew being less than impartial?

“Mortal Coil” Neelix questions his faith after he is killed in an accident and brought back to life by Seven, using Borg nanprobes.

“Living Witness” The Doctor, brought back online after 700 years, investigates accusations of war crimes against Voyager.

SEASON 5

“Drone” A new type of Borg is created after a transporter accident involving Seven and The Doctor.

“Course: Oblivion” The crew of Voyager are dying, and the ship is falling apart. But are they really who they think they are?

“Bride of Chaotica” A Captain Proton holodeck adventure goes south when a group of trans-dimensional aliens mistake it for reality.

“Juggernaut” The Voyager crew battle to stop a damaged Malon freighter exploding, and making an entire sector uninhabitable.

“Gravity” Paris and Tuvok are stranded on an otherwise deserted planet, where an alien female falls in love with the Vulcan security ofﬁcer.

“Relativity” A starship from the future enlists Seven of Nine in an attempt to save Voyager from destruction.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

“So here I am, on the front row of the workshop, talking the talk and thinking, ‘I can write one of those things!’” Fuller recounted to the official Voyager Magazine. “I felt passionate enough about it, and I could get my teeth into it.” Sure enough, Fuller, operating as a freelancer, crafted the stories for the Deep Space Nine episodes “The Darkness and the Light,” and “Empok Nor,” both of which aired in 1997. Fuller – still freelancing – was invited to rewrite the Voyager story (and to devise the demise of Kes), for what would become “The Gift.” However, circumstances required that a full-time staffer, Joe Menosky, pen that episode at warp speed. Instead, Fuller ended up rewriting “The Raven,” itself a rush job, in a mere six days. The story followed Voyager and her crew as they encountered the B’omar, a xenophobic species that stood in the way of their journey home, while Seven of Nine reverted to being a Borg drone, complete with visions of returning to the spot of her assimilation. Soon after, Braga invited Fuller to join the Voyager writing staff. That call came not a moment too soon. The tale goes that Fuller received his life-changing communication from Braga only hours after being fired from his day job, writing press releases for a healthcare public relations trade association. The reason for his abrupt dismissal? Faking one too many absences to his boss (an imaginary cyst on his back, an infection he caught from his cat, even a death in the family), in order to make time to reshape “The Raven.” As a very happy Fuller recounted to Voyager Magazine, “I got fired from my crappy day job and got hired with the dream job – that day. That day!”

WHAT STAR TREK DOES BEST Fuller gained his ﬁrst solo writing credit on Voyager by whipping an initial pitch from Kathy Hankinson into the powerful installment, “Mortal Coil.” At various points in its development, Ensign Wildman, and then Chakotay, and ﬁnally Neelix, died and came back to life, experiencing a crisis of

faith along the way. Fuller’s comments to Voyager Magazine simultaneously address the episode speciﬁcally, and offer a glimmer into his view of Star Trek. “What would be worse,” Fuller wondered, “than having your own dead grandmother come back and say, ‘You know, there is no God. This is all a ﬁgment of your imagination. You’re going to die, and there’s nothing after. You disappear, and that’s that. See ya!’ So that one, I think, really speaks to many fears. “And in a way that’s what Star Trek does best,” he continued. “It turns a secular element, that runs through everyone’s lives, on its ear – and tells it in a different way that you can appreciate, and you won’t be offended by it. Because it’s this little hedgehog guy from outer space doing it, then it’s much more palatable. You can get in through the back door.” Fuller went on to write, or co-write, a total of 20 Voyager episodes. Those episodes covered many parsecs of territory, story-wise; explored the various characters individually, and as a

“THERE ARE SO MANY REASONS WHY WE SETTLED ON DISCOVERY, BUT THE CHIEF ONE AMONGST THEM WAS THAT I COULDN’T THINK OF A MORE STAR TREKTHEMED NAME FOR A SHIP.” BRYAN FULLER crew; delivered scares and elicited chuckles. As a writer, Fuller seemed to learn from the misﬁres – such as “Retrospect,” which he admitted was his “least favorite” episode from his ﬁrst year with Voyager – and he built on his successful outings, among which were the Doctor-centric episode, “Living Witness,” and the previously mentioned “Mortal Coil.” By the time Voyager concluded its run in 2001, Fuller had risen through the ranks to the role of co-producer.

CREATING STRANGE NEW WORLDS While re-watching Fuller’s Star Trek episodes might give us some clue as to the style of Trek he prefers, it’s his work beyond Roddenberry’s universe – especially the shows that Fuller himself has created – that might point towards the kind of show he’ll help deliver in 2017. In 2002, Fuller moved on from Voyager to write a TV movie adaptation of the Stephen King horror classic, Carrie, before creating, writing, and producing Dead Like Me, a 2003 cable television series about a teenager who dies and

becomes a Grim Reaper, but can’t resist keeping tabs on the grieving family she left behind. It’s the kind of high-concept, left-field premise that has become something of a Fuller hallmark. Fuller exited after five episodes, but the show ran on for two seasons. Next, in 2004, Fuller created Wonderfalls. Again, the premise mixes the domestic with the fantastic, as a disenfranchised young woman (played by Caroline Dhavernas), working in a Niagra Falls giftshop, is shocked when the inanimate souvenirs lining the store’s shelves talk directly to her, compelling her to help others and become a better person. A 13-episode season was made, but network Fox decided to cancel the show after just 4 episodes had aired. Despite gaining a positive critical reception, Wonderfalls failed to find a broad enough audience, although the show would become a beloved cult favorite. Does any of that sound kind of familiar…?

Fuller tweeted a mysterious make-up test...

VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

Will the move to a streaming platform allow for more "Flesh and Blood" in Discovery?

Fuller’s next project, in 2006, was a proposed series based on the Mike Mignola comic book, The Amazing Screw-On Head. Fuller wrote and developed the pilot, but the show was not picked up, and he moved on to join the writing team on superpower series, Heroes. By 2007, he was back working on another creation of his own. Pushing Daisies was an inventive fantasy show about a pie-maker who can, for a ﬂeeting moment, bring dead things back to life. Fuller earned an Emmy Award nomination for his writing, but the series never attracted a wide audience, and was canceled after two seasons. Following that, Fuller created Mockingbird Lane, a 2012 reboot of The Munsters, which had been a favorite show from his youth. Sadly, that show didn’t make it beyond a pilot, but Fuller bounced back with perhaps his biggest hit to date, Hannibal. Based on the Thomas Harris novels Red Dragon and Hannibal, this was a gruesome and compelling exploration of the twisted, symbiotic relationship between FBI special investigator, Will Graham (played by Hugh Dancy) and the murderous psychologist, Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen, in blood-curdling form). Hannibal ran for a remarkable, and gory, three seasons. Despite some short runs and a few dead ends, surely the take-home from this summary of Fuller’s output is its evidence of a highly creative man with boundless imagination, lofty ambition, and a willingness to take narrative risks. This can only bode well for fans of Star Trek.

Fuller’s recent slate has included an adaptation of American Gods, and he spent much of 2016 developing a reboot of the Steven Spielberg anthology series Amazing Stories, but 2017 is all about Star Trek: Discovery. In February 2016, CBS made the announcement that Fuller, alongside Alex Kurtzman, would be creating the new Star Trek TV show, with Heather Kadin producing. Subsequent announcements revealed the involvement of Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s son, and his production partner, Trevor Roth, as co-executive producers. Then came word that Trek author Kirsten Beyer and Nicholas Meyer (writerdirector of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and the co-writer of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), had boarded the writing staff, as had Joe Menosky and Jesse Alexander. News later broke that Emmy-nominated director David Semel would helm the first episode, while Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, both of whom collaborated with Fuller on Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies, were confirmed to be working as Discovery co-showrunners. One thing is for certain: Discovery has amassed a formidable line-up of talent behind it. With the show initially intended to air next January, CBS announced in September that Discovery would instead debut in May of 2017, via streaming services CBS All Access in the United States, Bell Media in Canada, and on Netflix in 188 countries around the world. Fuller and Kurtzman issued a statement that read: “Bringing Star Trek back to television carries a responsibility and mission: to connect fans and newcomers alike to the series that has fed our imaginations since childhood. We aim to dream big and deliver, and that means making sure the demands of physical and post-production for a show that takes place entirely in space, and the need to meet an airdate, don’t result in compromised quality. Before heading into production, we evaluated these realities with our partners at CBS, and they agreed: Star Trek

DISCOVERING DISCOVERY deserves the very best, and these extra few months will help us achieve a vision we can all be proud of.” We got a peep at that vision in August, when Fuller tweeted a photo of what appeared to be the make-up test for an alien – a headpiece with some distinctive antennae… An Andorian, perhaps? Fuller has been playfully using the hashtag #StarTrekDisco when tweeting about the show, so search that out if you’re looking for more insider hints over the coming months.

WHAT DO WE KNOW At press-time, specific plot and character details remained scarce. But here’s what can be confirmed, in most cases directly by Fuller himself: Discovery’s events will take place in the “Prime” universe, about 10 years prior to the days of Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise, as seen in the original Star Trek series. The protagonist will be female, possibly African-American, and known as “Number One,” at least initially – and it seems she will not sit in the captain’s chair, not for a while anyway. “We’ve seen six characters from the captain’s point of view,” Fuller commented at the Television Critics Association (TCA) gathering, last spring. “In order to understand something that is so completely alien from her, she must first understand herself. That’s part of our journey on this planet, to get along, and that’s part of our journey in this first season.” So far as the story’s thrust, Fuller teased that, “There’s an incident in the history of Starfleet that had been talked about but never fully explored. It’s something I want to see.” Season 1 will run 13 serialized episodes that unfold like a novel, “with each episode being a

FULLER’S TREK

A potted guide to the Star Trek: Voyager episodes written or co-written by Bryan Fuller. Who will be our new Number One?

chapter of that novel, and within that chapter there’s a beginning, middle, and end,” Fuller noted at TCA. “We will have episodes that exist by themselves, but are a part of a much bigger story.” Further, he stated, airing on CBS All Access means “we’re not subject to broadcast standards and practices,” and suggested that it will provide the Discovery creative staff a “broader spectrum” in telling stories. Fans can expect robots, new and familiar aliens, as well as an openly gay regular character. “Absolutely, we are having a gay character,” Fuller has confirmed. During the Star Trek 50th anniversary events at San Diego Comic-Con, in July, 2016, Fuller screened a teaser trailer for Discovery that gave the nearly 6,000 fans in Hall H their first look at the work-in-progress hero ship, based on designs that the late Star Wars illustrator Ralph McQuarrie created for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II series. And it was at Comic-Con that the world first learned the show’s official name. Asked why he chose the name Discovery for both the ship, and for the show’s title, Fuller smiled and replied, “There are so many reasons why we settled on Discovery, but the chief one amongst them was that I couldn’t think of a more Star Trek-themed name for a ship.”

SEASON 6 “Barge of the Dead” Killed in a shuttle accident, Torres ﬁnds she has been condemned to an afterlife in Gre’thor – the hell for dishonored Klingons. “Alice” An alien intelligence aboard a salvaged shuttle manipulates Tom Paris into doing its bidding. “One Small Step” Voyager encounters the wreckage of one of Earth’s early manned missions to Mars. “Spirit Folk” The holographic residents of holoprogram town Fair Haven mistake the Voyager crew for magical beings. “Fury” A vengeful Kes returns to Voyager, obsessed with exacting revenge on Captain Janeway. “The Haunting of Deck Twelve” Neelix recounts a ghost story to the children of Voyager.

SEASON 7

“Workforce” Parts 1 & 2 Voyager’s crew has been kidnapped, and forced to work in a vast industrial complex on an alien world.

“BRINGING STAR TREK BACK TO TELEVISION CARRIES A RESPONSIBILITY AND MISSION: TO CONNECT FANS AND NEWCOMERS ALIKE TO THE SERIES THAT HAS FED OUR IMAGINATIONS SINCE CHILDHOOD.”

“Friendship One” Voyager is dispatched by Starﬂeet Command to recover a 21st Century Earth probe, lost in the Delta Quadrant.

Photo: Phil Stafford/Shutterstock.com

“Flesh and Blood” Parts 1 & 2 A distress call draws Voyager to a Hirogen outpost, only to ﬁnd that it has been allbut-destroyed by holographic technology given to them by Janeway.

BRYAN FULLER & ALEX KURTZMAN STAR TREK MAGAZINE

From enthusiastic, bushy-tailed young physician to seasoned battlefront medic, by the ﬁnale of Deep Space Nine Julian Bashir was a character who’d evolved. The same could be said for Bashir’s reallife alter ego, actor Alexander Siddig. Words: Ian Spelling

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

INTERVIEW: ALEXANDER SIDDIG

orn in Sudan and raised in England, Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi – better known as actor Alexander Siddig – arrived in the United States in late 1992, to audition for the role of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Dr. Julian Bashir. At the time, he could claim no Hollywood credits and was an eligible bachelor. When DS9 ended its run, in the summer of 1999, he was an acting veteran, married to co-star Nana Visitor, and a dad to boot. Talk about a life-changing role. “It couldn’t have had a more dramatic effect on my life,” Siddig confirms, “I have to thank (Deep Space Nine executive producer) Rick Berman, because astonishingly it was all positive. God, yeah, it’s as if I’d been rebuilt, like some sort of superhero, from this guy who was just hanging out and teaching in London, trying to figure out where to make the next penny, to a bona fide Hollywood actor.”

Since Deep Space Nine ended, Siddig has been one of Trek’s most-in-demand actors, rivaling the post-Trek success of Patrick Stewart and the near ubiquitous Colm Meaney (Siddig’s DS9 bestie, Miles O’Brien). Often turning up as a bad guy, he’s acted opposite wizards (in Merlin), dinosaurs (in Primeval), spies (The Fifth Estate), and gangsters (Peaky Blinders). Inevitably, like many of its characters, he also recently met a grisly end in Game of Thrones, but that’s another story. Siddig readily agrees that Star Trek made all this possible, but admits that he had no concept of what it would do for his career at the time. “People would cut off their right arm for the kind of job I had, and I didn’t really realize that then,” the actor says, “I didn’t realize how important the people in Hollywood saw that kind of role as being until way into my Deep Space Nine career. I was like, ‘This is just another job,’ because I was only 26, or whatever age I was.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Julian Bashir (Siddig) makes himself at home in DS9's med-bay

The Dominion War story arc saw a more mature Bashir emerge ("Inquisiton")

Alexander Siddig as Julian Bashir

“I didn’t think it was really exciting, which is probably why I got the job at the audition,” Siddig laughs. “I was so relaxed. It didn’t matter to me. Right up until the time I got on the plane, I thought it was for a guest role on The Next Generation – I didn’t even realize it was a brand new show. I got a contract, but I didn’t know how to read that. I just didn’t pay too much attention. So, when someone came to me after the audition and said, ‘We’re so happy to have you for the next six years,’ it all began to sink in that this is going to be very different.” The opportunity came at the perfect time for Siddig, who had no ties and was ready for anything. The reward was an enviable on-thejob learning experience. “Kids can move countries really easily; they don’t care where they are, so I didn’t,” says Siddig, “The older you get, the more ties you form. So, it was easy for me to just pick up my bags, march into L.A. and rent an apartment, and that’s precisely what I did. It’s a surreal way to start, and an amazingly privileged way to start,

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

“I THINK JULIAN IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF GUY WHO’D STILL BE HAPPY, 20 YEARS LATER, WITH HIS CHOICES.” because you begin to learn your skill, your craft, as an actor over six years, with a group of people you see day in, day out. This was like repertory theater, with a bunch of different directors, where money doesn’t seem to be any object. Where, even if you make a mistake, unlike a sportsman you can have four bad games on Star Trek, four bad episodes, and they’re not going to ﬁre you. They’re invested in you, so you can make mistakes and learn in safety.” Nothing in entertainment compared to the Star Trek juggernaut between 1987 and 2005. Back then, a Trek job pretty much meant seven years of steady work, regular paychecks, and no need to wait by the phone at the end of each season, hoping and praying for a renewal. It was, he explains, “unprecedented,” and an “honor to be one of the seven or eight people on any one of the ﬁve or six Trek shows.” That said, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, either. “L.A. really didn’t work for me at that age,” Siddig explains. “The fame, money, and all those things… I just wasn’t responsible enough

to deal with any of it. I didn’t go crazy and have cocaine or anything, but I just wasn’t entirely happy all the time, which I should’ve been. I should’ve been much happier.” One happy event was the birth of his son, Django, from his ﬁve-year marriage to Nana Visitor; the embodiment of how Star Trek sent Siddig’s life in unexpected new directions. Django also reminds the star how long ago his Trek experience was. “I have this wonderful son, who is now 19,” Siddig smiles, “and that’s how I know how old the show is. He was born in the third or fourth season. We have a phenomenal relationship, and he is going into ﬁlm – not as an actor, I hope, I think, I pray. Yeah, my life changed. But once something changes, you have no idea what it would’ve been.”

OUR MAN BASHIR The ofﬁcial synopsis of the Deep Space Nine premiere, “Emissary,” described Bashir as “a cocky and ambitious young doctor.” Another adjective would be inexperienced. As the credits

INTERVIEW: ALEXANDER SIDDIG rolled on the series finale, “What You Leave Behind,” 176 episodes later, Bashir had matured as a person, gained experience as a medic, admitted an uncomfortable truth about himself (that his parents had him genetically enhanced as a child), and emerged from the Dominion conflict more than a little war-torn. It could be argued that, to a degree, Bashir’s arc mirrored Siddig’s personal evolution. Siddig agrees. “I was really conscious of it happening at the time,” he says, aware that the writers used him as inspiration to develop the character. “There was an enormous amount of manipulation going on there. I mean, as an actor I had just me to work off, really. When you’re dealing with sci-fi, you can’t go and sit in space and figure out how they do stuff. That’s why it’s so important for producers to hire the right actors, because once you’ve got them, they’re going to build scripts around them, and the relationships. The inspiration comes as much from performances as it does from the writers’ minds. I absolutely knew what was happening, and I just tried to stay one step ahead of it. “I tried to put Bashir two years younger than me on any given day, and use my experiences, and what I was going through,”

Siddig reveals, “And being in L.A. was a brilliant starting point for landing on DS9, because L.A. – compared to London in those days, in the 90s – was as good as some other planet, as far as I was concerned. I had the security of wealth, which I’d never had before, and people wanting to know me, which I’d never experienced before. And being called by random, strange girls… These things were not part of my ordinary life. So when that started happening in L.A., I could’ve been on Deep Space Nine. I could use that stuff. “And there were battles, there were difﬁcult things, crises, and problems, and learning that money doesn’t mean much happiness,” continues Siddig. “It was all of the things everyone goes through when you’re in that situation, and a lot of people get destroyed by it. So, in a sense, I was war-torn by the end. I do remember clearly that I was really in control of that character. I had him down. I had nothing else. So, if I didn’t get him under control I would’ve been a totally loose, rudderless boat ﬂoating in the ocean.”

AFTER BAJOR S

iddig’s most recent project was the four-hour TV mini-series The Kennedys: After Camelot, set to air in 2017, in which he plays Aristotle Onassis opposite Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Heavy-duty make-up and prosthetics enable Siddig to resemble the Greek tycoon, leaving the actor to ﬁgure how best to bring him to life. “It’s difﬁcult, when you’re doing real people,” Siddig explains, “There’s a certain amount of preconception; everybody’s got an idea of what this guy is like. He was the richest man alive, and a force of nature, so you’ve got to be careful. Well, you’ve either got to be incredibly detailed, and do it exactly, or you’ve got to take an enormous amount of artistic license, and try to capture the essence. There’s almost no footage of Aristotle Onassis anywhere. He did [one] interview, but there’s only a couple of snippets of it, and it’s about three seconds [long]. So you have nothing to go off, except for biographical detail. I went, ‘Right, sod it, I’m going to just make this stuff up. I’m going to try and make him a force of nature, give him as much charm as I possibly can, and let the fat-suit do the work.’ And that’s what I did.”

BECOMING JULIAN BASHIR

s Deep Space Nine further explored the back-stories of its main characters, a facet of Julian Bashir’s history was introduced that changed the character deeply. We learned that ‘Jules’ (as originally named by his parents) had been an awkward child, suffering from some unspecified learning difficulties and falling behind at school. Concerned, and hoping to improve their child’s life-chances, Amsha and Richard Bashir took the decision to have their son undergo treatments that would accelerate the formation of critical neural pathways. In essence, this involved the re-sequencing of the seven-year-old child’s entire DNA, genetically enhancing ‘Jules’ into a virtually new person. Returning to school on Earth, Bashir was now the star pupil instead of the strange boy at the back of the class. At the age of 15, when he discovered what his parents had done to him, young Bashir was horrified, believing his parents had considered him sub-standard or faulty. He changed his name to Julian, refusing to ever again acknowledge the name his parents had given him.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Bashir (Siddig) and Sisko (Avery Brooks) witness Earth's turbulent history, in two-part DS9 classic, "Past Tense"

BATTLE LINES Over the coursee of Deep Space Nine’s seven seasons, Bashir formed strong friendships, moost notably with Miles O’Brien (Colm M Meaney), and Cardassian “tailor” Garak ((Andrew Robinson). He fancied Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), but ultimately romanced Dax’s next symbiont host,, Ezri (Nicole de Boer). Along the way he saved many lives, resisted the soolicitations of Section 31, and winsomely played spy in “Our Man Bashir.” Siddig embraced every twist and turn, but oone storyline got under the actor’s skiin, and it still rankles – the genetic enngineering revelation in Season 5 epissode, “Doctor Bashir, I Presume.” “I’ve gone on record a couple of times sayinng that I really didn’t like that,” Sidddig says, ﬁrmly. “I was furious, back in the day. I objected to the fact that something s so patently fabricated waas being put on someone whose humanity I treasured and protected. I didn’t d mind him possibly being part off Section 31. I didn’t mind that, because that could be done within the realm of this human being’s situaation. But I thought the

genetic engineering story was a cynical ploy by the studio.” It seems that, despite the perceived security of a lead role in a Star Trek series, Siddig didn’t feel so secure after all. “I think there were battles every year to have me ﬁred,” he reveals. “Deep Space Nine was not doing as well as it should have in the ratings, or as well as they expected it to, and they went, ‘Well, let’s make him more like Data.’ I honestly think that’s what they tried to do. ‘Maybe that’ll make him more popular.’ I thought that was cynical and unimaginative, and I’m happy to say the writers didn’t get that excited about it, either. I did it for a couple of shows, blandly delivered those lines, and they just let it drift away.” On a more positive note, Siddig did enjoy the late-blooming romance between Bashir and Ezri. He laughs as he contemplates whether or not they’re still together and if they remain as happy as they appeared when viewers last saw them. “I sometimes wonder,” Siddig wistfully admits. “I think Julian is exactly the kind of guy who’d still be happy, 20 years later, with his choices. I sometimes wonder what happened to him, whether the spy side of his story would’ve taken over, more than the doctor side of his story. I think Deep Space Nine ended at a point where Bashir could’ve ended up anywhere. He could’ve gone on to be a doctor on a ship, he could have

STARFLE

“‘FASCINATING’ IS A WORD I USE FOR THE UNEXPECTED. IN THIS CASE, I SHOULD THINK ‘INTERESTING’ WOULD SUFFICE.” SPOCK, “THE SQUIRE OF GOTHOS” 24

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

In the real world, no one is just a “scientist.” They are botanists, mathematicians, microbiologists, chemists, physicists, astronomers, geologists, zoologists, and many more. Most scientists are experts, not in all sciences, but in one scientific field and often in one narrow specialization. With Star Trek’s Science Officers, those specializations go out the airlock. Words: K. Stoddard Hayes

STAR TREK ’S SCIENCE OFFICERS

he job of a Star Trek Science Officer is to provide quick answers to any scientific question that arises, whether it’s an unfamiliar lifeform, a strange spatial phenomenon, or a problem in temporal mechanics. The Captain needs information, and the Science Officers provide it. If the science problem is the main story, finding the information takes time and effort. If science is incidental to the main story, the Science Officers often speed the story along by supplying the answers on the spot. For Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise, the assignment of scientific technobabble is easy, since each has a designated Science Officer – Spock, Jadzia Dax, and T’Pol have little competition in scientific expertise among their respective crews. In The Next Generation and Voyager, the Science Officer role is not specifically assigned, at least not on camera. The Next Generation does acknowledge scientific specializations by introducing crew members who are subject specialists, such as Botanist Keiko O’Brien, and Stellar Cartographer Neela Darren (“Lessons”). The ship’s large crew complement makes this not only believable but also essential for realism. Voyager’s bridge science station also is not manned by any regular named character. Because of its location, forward and well off to the side of the helm station, it isn’t even seen in many common camera angles. It’s likely the absence of a senior Science Officer is due to Voyager being a small ship on what was supposed to be a military mission.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

SCIENCE OFFICER PROFILES ///////

COMMANDER T’POL

Science Officer, U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01 PLAYED BY: Jolene Blalock BIRTHPLACE: Vulcan, 2088 PERSONAL: T’Pol is one of the first Vulcans to form a close relationship with humans, which leads to her disillusionment with the fallibility of Vulcan authorities: They are wrong in using a monastery to spy on the Andorians, wrong about the impossibility of time travel, and especially wrong about the value of the Vulcan mind meld. Ultimately, T’Pol rejects their authority, resigns from their service, and joins Starfleet. PET PEEVE: The smell of humans. And dogs! HOBBY: Exploring human culture, including watching ancient movies and experimenting with unconventional food – and eating methods. SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION: T’Pol is the first to recognize that the Spheres are the source of the Expanse. Her analysis of a stolen Sphere memory core provides the essential information needed to destroy the Spheres with a catastrophic chain reaction. p This leads to the end of both the Sphere Builders’ incursion and the Xindi War.

An encounter with the Suliban leads T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) to openly oppose the wishes of the Vulcan High Council ("Shockwave - Part 2")

SPOCK’S FELLOW VULCAN, T’POL, CONSTANTLY APPLIES HER COOL, DETACHED OBSERVATIONS TO THE AACTIONS OF HER HUMAN COMRADES. SCIENCE OFFICER REPORRTING As the first Science Officer in the Star Trek universe, Spock creates thhe job of being the go-to guy with all the scientific answers at his pale green fingertips. Along wiith general scientific knowledge and research eexpertise, he adds another dimension. He is the logical, detached observer, who analyzes annd forms conclusions without emotion or personnal bias. And he applies this approach not only to sscientific problems but to nearly all the challengees his ship and crew face, including the mysteries of human behavior. Where would Kirk be without Spoock’s logic to complement McCoy’s emotional insight? Continuing the Star Trek tradition of Vulcan Science Officers, T’Pol seerves as Archer’s Science Officer. In terms of thee history of Starfleet, it’s T’Pol who establisshes the precedent of a Vulcan Science Officer on a human crewed ship. Like Spock, she has plenty of opportunity to sttudy and comment on the peculiaritiees of human behavior and culture. UUnlike him, she is presumed at fifirst to be a hostile observer, untill she proves her loyalty to Archer and heer crewmates by publicly opposing her superiors’ wish to end Enterprise’s voyage ((“Shockwave, Part 2.”)

Deep Space Nine also has its dedicated Science Officer in Jadzia Dax. If it seems odd that the Federation’s temporary, custodial occupation of a newly liberated space station should need a Science Officer, perhaps the assignment can be explained by Dax’s expertise in exoarchaeology. This makes her a resource for the Bajorans as they restore their historical sites and artifacts after the Cardassian Occupation. However, the discovery of the wormhole gives new importance to Dax’s posting, and provides an inexhaustible field of study for her expertise in astrophysics. The Enterprise-E, Starfleet’s finest new ship, surely has a Science Officer to head up its extensive complement of Science specialists, yet we have no idea who that officer is. Nearly all of the scientific dialog in The Next Generation falls to Data, whose actual assignment is Operations Officer. However, he provides the rational analysis and has almost infinite factual information on the tip of his synthetic tongue. Often testing Picard’s patience, this information can seem literally endless, as Data recites a figure or statistic to the tenth decimal place or millionth of a part. Voyager’s Operations Officer, Harry Kim, also fulfills some of the Science Officer functions, as he reports sensor data on the “who, what, how big, and how powerful” during many alien

STARFLEET’S FINEST

Spock (Leonard Nimoy) at his science station on the Enterprise bridge

encounters in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway herself is a former Science Officer, who often brings her own expertise to any science-related problems, especially in the early seasons. And her favorite holodeck program, Leonardo da Vinci’s Lab, shows that she still keeps up her scientific interests, if only to relax. However, once Seven of Nine joins Voyager’s crew, she takes over most of the functions of the Science Officer character. She helps design Stellar Cartography and becomes its charge officer. She also takes the lead in many of Voyager’s riskier science experiments, particularly in adapting Borg transwarp and slipstream flight technology to shorten Voyager’s journey.

ADVANCED STUDIES, ADVANCED BRAINS What makes each of these officers the right person for the Science post? For Spock and Dax, the answer is easy: both studied to be scientists. Spock spent his entire youth training for admission to the Vulcan Science Academy, only to spurn their acceptance over their overt discrimination against his part-human heritage, instead enrolling in Starfleet Academy. Spock’s studious nature gives him a wide scientific expertise, while his analytical mind provides essential information to Kirk in countless situations – anything from identifying Norman as the key to disabling Harry Mudd’s androids, in “I, Mudd,” to detailing why, in “Balance of Terror,” a Romulan commander would interpret his enemy’s failure to pursue and attack as a weakness. Dax, another Academy graduate, pursued

studies in exobiology, astrophysics, zoology, and exoarchaeology, a range that showcases her brilliant and adventurous mind. The discovery of the wormhole gives Dax a huge new scientific field to play in: not only the study of the wormhole itself, but the entire unknown Quadrant that lies at the far end. Dax also has the opportunityy to study ancient Bajoran relics – but not, perhapss, in the way that Starfleet intended. Instead, her expertise becomes invaluable to Sisko, the Emissary, as he seeks to learn more about the Prophets and their intentions. T’Pol’s scientific training is less cleaar. She is attached, at one point in her prior career, to the Vulcan Science Ministry. However, H most of her experience before being assigned to Enterprise appears to be in Intelligence work and diplomacy. From the Vulcan perspecctive, this makes her an excellent candidate to be the watchdog of the humans’ first deep space mission. However, she soon proves that she has more m than adequate scientific knowledge to fulfill the t role she has been given. Seven of Nine’s advanced Borg programming and her encyclopedic stoore of Borg knowledge provide the perfect justification for her to become the de facto science expert. Since she – or ratther, the Borg – are far more familiar with the Delta Quadrant than anyone else on Voyager, she can provide ready answers to most scientific questions. The same Borg capabilities allow her to analyze and a theorize as logically as any Vulcan.

Science Officer, U.S.S. Enterprise PLAYED BY: Leonard Nimoy BIRTHPLACE: Vulcan, 2230 PERSONAL: As a half-human who often experienced discrimination on Vulcan, Spock chose a Starfleet career because he knew Starfleet would value only his abilities and accomplishments, not his DNA. He distinguished himself as Science Officer and First Officer of the Enterprise, and found his closest friendships among humans. His later career, however, was distinguished for diplomatic accomplishments, not science. HOBBIES: Three-dimensional chess, playing the Vulcan lute. PET PEEVE: Illogical human characteristics, especially the emotionalism exhibited by his cohort, Leonard McCoy. SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION: In “The Immunity Syndrome,” Spock’s mission into the entity that destroyed the Intrepid not only identified the entity as a galactic scale amoeba, but provided the essential information needed to destroy it before it could reproduce. Given its gigantic appetite for energy, this likely saved many nearby populated planets.

SCIENCE OFFICER PROFILES ///////////

COMMANDER SPOCK

SCIENCE OFFICER PROFILES //////////

LT COMMANDER DATA

Operations Officer, Enterprise-D, Enterprise-E PLAYED BY: Brent Spiner ACTIVATED: Omicron Theta, 2338 PERSONAL: Data joined Starfleet because Starfleet officers rescued him from abandonment. His biggest obstacle in his quest to be more human proved to be his “older brother,” Lore – a fatally flawed earlier version whom Data ultimately had to deactivate. However, he was finally successful in integrating an emotion chip (always intended for Data but stolen by Lore,) to the enrichment of his life experience. HOBBIES: Painting, poetry, musical performance, holodeck roleplaying, training his cat, Spot. PET PEEVE: None known. Data is open to all kinds of experiences. SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION: Data advanced positronic science to new levels throughout his Enterprise career, including the creation of another android, his (tragically short lived) daughter, Lal, and even the recognition of other positronic devices (such h exocomp as se nt life forms. as the

Data (Brent Spiner) explored all his hobbies and interests with a scientific vigor

Yet even a Borg can’t compare with Data, whose h positroni i ic braiin andd android d id abbilities make him, perhaps, the ideal scientist. He caan observe, measure, and compute, often with his own enhanced android senses. Then he can compile the raw data and observations, make complex calculations, and remember every factt he has ever been exposed to, all in his own head.

HIGHLY ILLOGICAL Because of Spock, the Science Officer was w associated from the start with applying rationality and logic beyond mere scientific problems. Spock fills the essential science fictionn role of an outsider to human society, a detaached observer of the foibles of humanity. His dry, almost sarcastic commeents on human characteristics and human emotionalism are legendaary. Most fans can quote their favoorite Spock moment, whether it’s him h having the last word in a logiic versus emotions debate with McCoy, or even better, the moments when his human comrades turn the tables annd catch him out in an alll too human moment. The eyebrow raised withoutt a word may be his most devastating comment of all.

This role of outsider and observer became a prototype, to a greater or lesser extent, in all of the later characters who inherit the Science Officer role. Spock’s fellow Vulcan, T’Pol, constantly applies her cool, detached observations to the actions of her human comrades. However, while Spock and McCoy can mock-feud openly, T’Pol is much more reserved in her comments. In her day, Vulcans and humans do not yet have the advantage of a long and amicable alliance, let alone Spock’s intimacy with humans through his own mother and many years of Starfleet Service. Instead, the two races are quick to judge and take offence at each other. So T’Pol is more likely to make her observations in private to a trusted individual: perhaps to Archer, to Trip later in their relationship, or to the Enterprise’s other outsider, Phlox. As an android, Data is also an interested observer and commenter on biological crew behavior. His observations are driven not by Vulcan disdain, but by his consuming desire to be as human as possible. Yet his android approach to becoming human is completely rational, applying the scientific method with incongruous, and often hilarious results. He tries painting under the tutelage of a “blind man” (Geordi, “11001001”), writes behavior subroutines to mimic human behaviors, such as being a good boyfriend (“In Theory”), and keeps detailed records of his attempts to understand his cat, Spot.

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Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell)

“I’M THE SCIENCE OFFICER. IT’S MY JOB TO HAVE A BETTER IDEA.” JADZIA DAX, “PARADISE”

The Doctor and Seven (Jeri Ryan) get back to basics, in "Scientific Method"

Only Jadzia escapes the logical, unemotional whammy. Not only is she a young and brilliant woman, she is passionate and adventurous in all that she does. However, she is also a jooined Trill with three centuries of life experience, so she does sometimes play the wise old obseerver of those around her. She offers insight, commentary and advice with a healthy dose of humor and affection for her much younger comraddes, especially her old friend, Sisko.

IT TAKES TWO Who knows whether he ever realizes that Spot is a fussy eater, not because she doesn’t like Feline Supplement Number Whatever, but simply because she is a cat? Seven of Nine’s outsider perspective on the actions and attitudes of her human crewmates is filtered through the priorities of a former Borg. Her watchword is less often “illogical” and more often “inefficient,” whether she’s referring to ship’s systems that don’t meet Borg standards; a command structure that requires her to get permission for improving those systems; or the inexplicable rituals of human “mating behavior.” The last she studies almost obsessively by making detailed scientific observations of B’Elanna and Paris (“Scientific Method”), taking dating lessons from the Doctor (“Someone to Watch Over Me”), and practicing romantic technique on a holographic Chakotay (“Human Error”).

Because of their position at the nexus of called information, the Science Ofﬁcers are often o on to work closely with the Chief Medical Ofﬁcer to solve ship’s problems in the biologiccal sciences, and with the Chief Engineer to solve prroblems in spatial physics and warp mechanics.. Whether these partnerships are easy or awkward depends mostly on the personalities of the individuals. McCoy and Spock, despite their reciproocal annoyance, still manage to identify the pathogen that has devastated Miri’s planet, and develop a serum for it (“Miri”). T’Pol and Trip begin with distrust and condescension as she assists him with the in working through various problems w Enterprise’s prototype technologies, yet they become lovers. Seven of Nine often brings advancced Borg medicine, technology to the aid of the Doctor’s m with an such as reviving the very dead Neelix w

Science Officer, Deep Space 9 PLAYED BY: Terry Farrell BIRTHPLACE: Jadzia - 2341; Dax symbiont 2018 PERSONAL: As a joined Trill, Dax is an extraordinary blend of brilliant young woman and 300-year-old mind. She has been friend and mentor to Sisko since he was a young officer. Her affinity for Klingons and their culture began with Curzon Dax’s bloodbrother bond with several Klingon heroes, and culminates in her marriage to Worf in grand Klingon style. HOBBIES: Klingon martial arts, obscure music, Altonian brain teasers, and light flirtation with any male who has a crush on her, especially Bashir and Quark. PET PEEVE: Dax finds Klingon honor both admirable and infuriating, especially in family members. SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION: Co-discoverer, with Benjamin Sisko, of the Bajoran Wormhole. Dax determined that the “Celestial Temple” of the Bajorans was a phenomenon previously unknown to Federation astrophysics: a stable, artificial wormhole. Its discovery, plus Dax’s years of close study of the wormhole, revolutionized wormhole physics and changed the history of two quadrants.

SCIENCE OFFICER PROFILES ////////////

LT COMMANDER JADZIA DAX

SCIENCE OFFICER PROFILES //////////

SEVEN OF NINE

Astrometrics Specialist, U.S.S. Voyager PLAYED BY: Jeri Ryan BIRTHPLACE: Born Annika Hansen, Tendara Colony, 2350 PERSONAL: Assimilated by the Borg as a child, Seven’s scientific knowledge was essentially programmed into her by the Collective. Once liberated, Seven demonstrates enormous natural ability in the physical sciences, through applied work in engineering, astrophysics, astrometrics and FTL flight technology. She finds these advanced scientific studies much easier than understanding human interactions. PET PEEVES: Neelix’s attempts to spice up Voyager’s catering (a peeve shared with most of the crew); having to follow Starfleet protocols when they interfere with her projects. HOBBY: Studying human mating behavior, both by observation and participation. SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION: As part of the Voyager team assigned to contain and destroy Omega molecules, Seven observed an Omega molecule become stable for an instant before it was destroyed, thus becomingg the first known direct observer of this phenomenon. (“The Omega Directive”)

injection of nanoprobes (“Mortal Coil”), and each often helps the other with problems in their artiﬁcial systems. The Doctor oversees the lengthy medical and physical process of Seven’s deassimilation. In return, Seven becomes a partner in helping the Doctor develop more security and stability in his programming, to prevent hacks like the Equinox crew’s deletion of his ethical subroutine (“Equinox, Part 2”). More important, though, is the bond of two not-quite human outsiders learning to ﬁt in among their human comrades. The Doctor, three years ahead of Seven on the learning curve, becomes her mentor in all sorts of human behavior. Yet even closer than Seven and the EMH are Data and Geordi. Not only is Data a major resource

pace is a strange place, and while most Star Treeek main characters have bizarre experieences, some of our Science Officers have moore than the usual share of encountters with the inexplicable. Seven of Nine has several mental adventures, including a dream life in “Unimatrix Zero”, and sharing her booody with the EMH’s program in “Body and Souul”. Most bizarre is a case of Hive multiple persooonality disorder, when dozens of personalities ffrom within the Collective began to express theemselves through her, in season 5 episode “Infinnite n Regress”. Data’s heead has been 500 years older than the rest of him since “Time’s Arrow,” when a duplicate of o it was found in a 19th Century Earth archhaeological site (Data’s head had been shoot o off by Devidian intruders during a time-travel escapade). His body was returrned r to the 24th Century, where La Forge reattached the now ancient heead, which seems to work just fine, despite its advanced age.

for solving many engineering problems, but he and Geordi conduct endless studies and experiments with Data’s positronic systems, hoping not only to help Data understand himself, but to build a foundation for someday duplicating Soong’s work. More important, Data and Geordi are best friends. They spend considerable leisure time together, finding new ways to explore Data’s humanity, and trying out new holodeck programs – with mixed results, such as accidentally creating the sentient hologram Moriarty (“Elementary, Dear Data”). Alien, android, or former Borg, each of Star Trek’s Science Officers is something more than an ordinary human. It’s these very differences that make them good Science Officers, and entertaining observers of the human condition.

But it’s Spock who wins the Weird Science Grand Master Award. He has had his brain stolen (“Spock’s Brain”), mind melded with a massive artiﬁcial intelligence (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), died and been regenerated by the Genesis planet (The Search for Spock), and ﬁnally, survived passage through a black hole to start a new life in an alternate timeline alongside his parallel younger self (Star Trek (2009)) Seven suffers a personality crisis ("Infinite Regress")

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5 SETS TO GIVE A

s part of the celebration of Star Trek’s 50th Anniversaary, FanSetts is proud to present a ﬁve-pin set featuring the Capta s f the ﬁve Star Trek television shows, and the ships they c mm n

Each pin is manufactured to the highest quality, and is deta d a styled with pin-point accuracy to give fans a true collectible thatt can be proudly worn or displayed for years to come. We have ﬁ f these 10-pin sets to give away!

¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾

Captain Kirk and the U.S.S. Enterprise 170 01 Captain Picard and the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D Captain Sisko and Deep Space 9 Captain Janeway and the U.S.S. Voyager Captain Archer and the Enterprise NX-01

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ﬁ pin sets, send us the ansswer wer to to the follllowing i Star Trek trivia question:

WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE TRADER THAT INTRODUCED TRIBBLES TO SPACE STATION K7? A) HARRY MUDD B) CYRANO JONES C) ZEFRAM COCHRANE

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Email answer A, B, or C startrekmagazine@titanemail.com, anemail com with “FANSETS GIVEAWAY” in the subject line, or send it on a postcard to: (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.

Closing date for entries is January 16th, 2017. For full terms and conditions, please visit www.titanmagazines.com/t/star-trek/competitions

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, E T I R O V Y FA HT BE M Y L E T I FIN E NINE MIG E D S I S ERIE DEEP SPAC STORYLINE S L A N I : IG “THE ORHINK AR TREKF THE DEPTH OF.” BUT I T ST, BECAUSE O CHARACTERS THE BE E BREADTH OF AND TH STM: What’s the feedback on Engage been like from your listeners? JH: It’s mostly positive. I like the fact that we are not locked into a certain regimen each week, but that’s been a complaint. People saying, “I wish there was more of a structure, I wish I knew what every episode was going to be like before I heard it.” That to me sounds like going to school. Who needs that? If I wanted to have a rigid structure, I would go and work for a living. STM: How did you get into Star Trek in the ﬁrst place? JH: Artist Bob Peak’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture poster left me thunderstruck. I was four years old, and really wanted to see the movie. I nagged my parents. We had a very busy day out in the cold – it was Christmas in New York – and the minute we got into the theatre I fell asleep! I have

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

almost no recollection of seeing se the t mo although I remember seeeing movie, the worm ormhole sequence, becausee it was noisy and woke wo me up! I love that movie. That moviee’s terriﬁc. I love the loook of it, and the t speciﬁc strangeness of it. The orriginal Star rek TV series was very 60s, and whhen wee got to the movies they were very 80s andd 900s, but The m Motio ion Picture is the only 70s Sta taar Trekk we have. I rea eally fell in love with Star Tre rek ek from seeing really Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, even though I atres SStar tar Trek didn’t see Star Trek III in the theatres. IV really blew me away. I could see Star Trek in re-runs every night. Immediately after seeing Star Trek IV, I was able to dive in and become a huge fan. This was ‘86 so, right around the corner, after I had dived in for about a year, The Next Generation started and then, boom, that was it. We could get both the New York City stations and the Philadelphia stations, so that meant seeing The Next Generation multiple times because it was syndicated, and it was on at different times, back to back. I could watch it on

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one channel, and then the minute it ended I could watch it again on a Philadelphia station, so I could really waste a whole day watching Star Trek, if I was smart. STM: What’s your favorite iteration of Star Trek? JH: My favorite is the original series. I just love those characters, and I just love the look, I love the sound. It’s something that’s been with me for such a long time, and it’s almost like they’re always on,

HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN

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especially now, with streaming, I don’t even have to go to the DVD shelf. I can even be working on something and I will keep it on as background. I just love having it on. The original series is definitely my favorite, but I think Star Trek: Deep Space Nine might be the best, because of the depth of storyline and the breadth of characters. There are so many nuances to Deep Space Nine, because it was telling a serialized story over multiple years, and each character had their own arc. It’s just great science fiction, and great story-telling. It was a thick Russian novel of a thing. You could only do it after having established a world in The Next Generation. STM: A decade ago it looked like Star Trek was finished. Did you ever expect it to return to the big or small screen?

JH: Yes, I did! I had great faith in corporate America, and recognition that there was money to be made. I knew it was coming back. The 2009 ﬁlm by J.J. Abrams is just about perfect. It did everything it had to do. It breathed some life into a franchise that was a little bit stagnant. I am very excited for the new show next year. I have a suspicion that, ten years from now, when we think about Star Trek, we are going to be thinking about the original series, The Next Generation through to Voyager, and what’s happening on CBS All Access. The Kelvin timeline is what is it: an alternate timeline, a sort of an asterisk that was ultimately fun, but not the main event. A sort of an appetizer before dinner. I am ultimately more excited about what Bryan Fuller has up his sleeve. That’s an interesting group of people that he’s collected. The writing staff he’s got on that show so far is fantastic. Nicholas Meyer is really one of the great men of Star Trek.

JH: I don’t know any more than everybody else. Not one thing. I’ve heard one juicy titbit, but I’m not telling you! The new show is going to be a 13-episode arc, which is what modern TV is, so there may be less of what we are used to. We may not get time to learn the back story of the doctor, or the chief engineer or the navigator, but that’s changing with the times. There will be ample opportunity to really dig in with those characters, in what I am sure is going to be a host of tremendous tie-in novels and comic books when the new series is out. STM: What’s your advice to new fans who have been introduced to Star Trek by any of the last three ﬁlms, and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of material that’s available? JH: There’s a lot to like, and that should be your gateway to the original series. You should watch the show, which is readily available on 17 different streaming platforms, pick out some of the better episodes – there’s a lot of lists on the internet – and you’ll get hooked. STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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you like the movies, it’s not just because o e action quences, altho h that might be most dazzling – it’s the charact . Zachary Quinto’s S ck and Leon rd Nimoy’s Spock are fferent, b they’re not that di rent. If you ike the new Spock, you’re ing to like e old Spock too. The same with Chris P ne. Pine and William Shatner’s Kirks are ry similar. Another thing you can do is go to a Trekk event. If you’ree really into i , go and meet the fans, and by talking to them, that’s your gateway. To people out ere that do t intimidated by the enormity of ar Trek, k don’t be scared, don ink of it as a barrier of entry at you need to d a lot of w k be e a Star Tr an. You don’ need to study to list listen to jazz jazz, a you y don’t n d to study to watch Star Trek.

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I am a tr tremendous expert, but when I go to conventions, I sit s in the back row, and I’m intermediate at bes est. I cannot name every guest star, and I som metimes have difﬁculty remembering the titless of some episodes. STM: M: What’s your take on thee expanded universee of Star Trekk comic bookks and novels?? On the podcast, you’vee spoken about soome of them in very reverential tones. JH: I love them. They ar are great. Compared to the common man, who would never touch a Star ar Trekk book with a 10ft stickk, I am pretty well read. I wissh that I had time to reaad more. I am well versed in all the comics because it only taakes a few minutes to reead a comic book. I havve read every Star Trekk comic that has been

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published, which is not that difficult a task. Ever sincce IDW Publishing got the license, they’ve really been the next grade to terrific. Pretty much everrything IDW has done gets it. They hire writers and artists that clearly love the show. If there’s any real fan who hasn’t been reading the IDW comics, you are so in luck because there are so many great little tie-ins to the original series, so many Easter eggs, so many great “Ahha!”” moments. And it’s in multiple timelines too. STM M: Is there anything you’d like to say now to your existing listeners? JH H: Stick S with it! Once the new show starts, you migght see some changes in the way that we do things, with a more specific focus on the new show w. And thanks for listening so far.

Subscribe to Engage: The Ofﬁcial Star Trek Podcast on iTunes or download it from play.it. Follow Jordan Hoffman on Twitter @jhoffman

TIMEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S ARROW

P A C D H A Y M MA

TIME'S ARROW

here is a psychological transformation when somebody puts on a uniform. Their identity shifts in line with their perception of that role, their duties, their responsibilities. There is, perhaps, an even more profound shift when they add command insignia to that uniform, followed by the critical moment of assuming control over a group of people. The next psychological change comes under pressure, when the responsibility for a crew becomes a heavy burden. Sometimes the cumulative pressures from those moments build up, until an individual’s mind snaps and they lose control. If anything bad happens to their crew, the life of a Starfleet captain can end in personal destruction and mental breakdown – yet the same can happen if you throw anyone into the void with a ready crew and no one to answer to. It’s surprising that more commanders don’t go completely bananas with power. With Starfleet and the benign influence of the United Federation of Planets to back them up, the majority of command personnel remain on an even keel, but when commanding officers stop operating on all thrusters, boy do they do so in style.

M E H

ing e h t th y l n ke o he e ta t n’t anna ip – in’s e ar "c rsh pta h… s s ta a ac e e r C s m o i e bre c et a h t p ar som e" on it’s rs a s W at r lly ffe hew u h s t es iona su att pr cas that h M oc nity : Ric sa ords W

WHEN COMMANDING OFFICERS STOP OPERATING ON ALL THRUSTERS, BOY DO THEY DO SO IN STYLE. DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR In true Roddenberry fashion, those Captains who jettisoned their mental warp cores during the original five-year mission of Kirk’s Enterprise usually ended up exploiting alien races to their own end, having bought into their own “myth” by the time James T. caught up with them. So we get Captain Merik posing as a Merikus, the First Citizen of an Ancient Greek organization kitted out with 20th Century Earth technology; Captain Tracey fiddling in the affairs of Iron-Age tribes to cheat death; and the shape-shifting Captain Garth – literally the inmate that took over the galactic asylum – who, naturally, declares himself Master of the Universe. As captains, all three faced catastrophic situations, performed their duties admirably, and attempted to rescue their crew… then went loco under extreme circumstances, manipulating the lesser-developed species they encountered, initially to survive, but then as part of their own mania to rule.

TIME’S ARROW

DATACORE “BREAD AND CIRCUSES” STAR TREK SEASON 2, EPISODE 14 WRITTEN BY: GENE RODDENBERRY AND GENE L. COON DIRECTED BY: RALPH SENENSKY FIRST AIRED: MARCH 15TH 1968

Kirk, Spock and McCoy find themselves prisoners of a Roman Empire-style civilization equipped with 20th Century technology. The trio are to be forced to participate in televised gladiatorial combat, overseen by one “Merikus”, who turns who to be Kirk’s old Starfleet friend, Captain Merik… Roddenberry’s parody of 1960s American television, complete with fake audience applause and an obsession with ratings, is

the only original series episode to explicitly state that the planet’s population speak English. This is believed to be because the natives’ confusion between “Son” and “Sun” worshippers wouldn’t have worked via the universal translator. The Children of the Son hide out in a cave situated just below the Hollywood sign, which was also the entrance to the Batcave in the classic 1960s Batman TV series.

DATACORE “THE OMEGA GLORY” STAR TREK SEASON 2, EPISODE 25 WRITTEN BY: DIRECTED BY: FIRST AIRED: When they encounter the U.S.S. Exeter adrift in space with its crew missing, the crew of the Enterprise find Captain Ron Tracey on the planet below, living among an iron-age civilization as the sole survivor of his ship… The discovery of the derelict Exeter is the second of three appearances of other Constitution-class starships whose crew have been wiped out. The first was the U.S.S. Constellation in “The Doomsday Machine,” and the third was the U.S.S. Defiant (a name that would come back to haunt Kirk in The Wrath of Khan) in “The Tholian Web.”

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GENE RODDENBERRY VINCENT MCEVEETY MARC CH 1ST 1968

An announcement duringg the episode’s closing credits revealed that the show had been renewed for a third season – and a included a desperate plea, in response too the monumental “Please Save Star Trek letter-writing campaign: c do not send any more letters!”

They represent a similar mindset and position to Khan Noonien Singh (“Space Speed”) – they are “superior” to the races they rule over, with their situation overriding their morality and ethics, especially the “non-interference” clause of the Prime Directive. In Garth’s case, he even attempted genocide of a gentle species that taught him how to change his appearance to heal hideous physical injuries he’d suffered – his mental scars remained quite intact. The show carefully posits that even experienced individuals are susceptible, with Garth reaching the heights of Fleet Captain, and Kirk describing Ronald Tracey as one of Starfleet’s most trusted officers. Tracey was driven over the edge by his own Kobyashi Maru – his crew infected with a virus that could only be rendered inert by the atmosphere of the planet Omega IV, where he stayed as his people died. In contrast, Merik’s instability was flagged early, failing a psycho-simulator test at Starfleet, where he was a contemporary of Kirk’s. He was redeemed by sacrificing himself to help the Enterprise crew escape the quasi-Roman regime of planet 892-IV. For Roddenberry, madness was definitely equated with power and an inflated sense of self-importance, which is a sound reflection of his outlook on the late 1960s world in which he lived, where people were questioning the status quo and the ability of those in power to lead.

WAR MEMORIAL Jump ahead a couple of decades, and both the real world and TV landscapes looked very different. Consequently, a figure of authority losing their faculties also looked different in the 24th Century. In 1991, madness was focused on paranoia and conspiracy, pivoting on being able to see beyond the past of old enemies, in this case

Captain R.M. Merik (William Smithers, "Bread and Circuses")

TIME'S ARROW

Garth (Steve Ihnat), self-declared Master of the Universe, turns out to be far from the perfect host ("Whom Gods Destroy")

FOR RODDENBERRY, MADNESS WAS DEFINITELY EQUATED WITH POWER a new Federattion treaty with the Cardassians. Now, before aanyone starts muttering that Captain Maxw well was right not to trust the most self-serving aand duplicitous of Alpha Quadrant species, just bbear in mind that a) this was where the Cardassians were introduced, so the audience wasn’t encum mbered (ironically) with a lot of Cardassian baaggage, and b) this was written, produced, andd aired against the backdrop of the Gulf War, so w was very much preoccupied with representing Hawkish, militaristic behavior as being akin to madness. Maxwell, and the dilemma he presents Picard, the Enterprise, Starfleet and the Federation – namely, that he is trying to cause a new war witth the Cardassians – is also indicative of the sweet sspot that The Next Generation often hit beetween Roddenberry’s bright utopia

DATACORE “WHOM GODS DESTROY”

STAR TREK SEASON 3, EPISODE 16 WRITTEN BY: DIRECTED BY: FIRST AIRED: Kirk and Spock are captured in the Elba II insane asylum by escaped inmate and former Starfleet Fleet Captain “Garth of Izar”… The title comes from an Ancient Greek proverb: “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” Leonard Nimoy issued a memo to the producers complaining about this episode’s similarities to “Dagger of the Mind”, including the use of an “agony chair” prop being reused (with added earpieces), inconsistencies in the plot, and Spock’s character in the script,

LEE ERWIN AND JERRY SOHL HERB WALLERSTEIN JANUARY 3RD 1969 primarily the Vulcan’s inability to distinguish the real Kirk from an imposter. This is the only episode that sees Spock do his Vulcan nerve pinch on two different species at the same time.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

TIME’S ARROW “THE WOUNDED”

DATACORE

THE NEXT GENERATION SEASON 4, EPISODE 12 WRITTEN BY: JERI TAYLOR, STUART CHARNO, SARA CHARNO, CY CHERMAK DIRECTED BY: CHIP CHALMERS FIRST AIRED: JANUARY 28TH 1991 When Captain Benjamin Maxwell and the U.S.S. Phoenix destroy an unarmed Cardassian science station, Picard and the Enterprise-D crew are tasked with apprehending him to fend off another Federation/Cardassian war… This episode marked the first appearance of the Cardassians, deliberately conceived to be more eloquent than Trek’s previous alien protagonists. Michael Westmore designed their look after an abstract painting of a wide-shouldered woman who appeared to have a spoon in the middle of her forehead. This was the only time they sported facial hair and head dresses.

and the subsequent darkening of that world that was necessary for Star Trek to be dramatic, and remain relevant to contemporary audiences. Benjamin Maxwell was a decorated veteran of the Federation-Cardassian War, losing his wife and child in the Setlik III massacre – an event that he seemed to stoically take on the chin at the time. However, when peace was bartered with the Cardassians, Maxwell’s buried resentment sadly resurfaced, costing more than 600 Cardassian lives as he attempted to sabotage the nascent détente, and drag the Enterprise into direct conflict. Maxwell’s motives are dark, complex, and allegorical, but the solution – the adherence to diplomacy, the appealing to a man’s better nature – is classic Star Trek optimism and idealism. Maxwell’s mania, cloaked in a chilling veneer of reason, may be endangering the entire quadrant, but there must be a better way to deal with it than scattering his phasered atoms among the stars. Sense and positivity win the day, thanks mostly to Chief O’Brien, some whisky, and some questionable crooning. If there is one thing that is consistent across all of Star Trek’s incarnations, it is that war is bad, and only one small step away from insanity.

FERAL FRONTIER

STAR TREK BEYOND WRITTEN BY: DIRECTED BY: RELEASE DATE:

Midway through their five-year mission exploring deep space, the crew of the Enterprise encounter a new destructive force, fronted by a formidable alien commander. But the truth of Krall’s history hits much closer to home… The U.S.S. Franklin’s registry number, NX-326, is a tribute to Leonard Nimoy, whose

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DATACORE SIMON PEGG AND DOUG JUNG JUSTIN LIN JULY 22ND 2016 birthday was March 26th – while Kirk’s log of the Enterprise’s 966th day in deep space is a reference to September 1966, when Star Trek first aired on US television. This is only the second Star Trek film not to feature scenes set on or near Earth. The other was Star Trek Insurrection.

Things are very different in the Kelvin timeline in many ways, not least in the different journeys (literal and figurative) that the crew of the Enterprise NCC-1701 make in the days before, and during, their first historic five-year mission. In Star Trek Beyond, the third of the films set in this new timeline, the Enterprise encounters a highly aggressive bee-like civilization, the like of which no one in Starfleet has ever encountered before – or so it seems. It turns out that the leader of this marauding swarm, the reptilian-looking Krall, hides a human skeleton in his scaly blue closet – that of his true identity as Captain Balthazar M. Edison, a former officer in the Military Assault Command Operations division, who saw action in both the Xindi and the Earth-Romulan Wars before ascending to command of the U.S.S. Franklin, after the foundation of the Federation and the dissolution of MACO. It was during his command that Edison started to resent Starfleet’s policies of diplomacy and exploration as a waste of his abilities as a soldier, and when the Franklin fell into a wormhole within the Gagarin Radiation Belt in 2164, crashing on the distant planet Altamid, his resentment grew into hatred, believing Starfleet had abandoned the ship’s three survivors – himself, Anderson Le, and Jessica Wolff.

TIME'S ARROW Even Kirk isn't imune to moments of madness (The Search for Spock)

WE ALL HAVE A BAD DAY SOMETIMES IF THERE IS ONE THING THAT IS CONSISTENT ACROSS ALL OF STAR TREK 'S INCARNATIONS, IT IS THAT WAR IS BAD This probably wouldn’t have led to much, had it not been for the abandoned alien technology that Edison found on Altamid – technology that not only gave him a swarm of ships and a drone workforce to pilot them, but also the ability to drain energy from living beings to prolong his own life. It was this “energy transference” that mutated his appearance into Krall. He also learned of an ancient weapon, the Abronath, split into two parts to prevent its use, which he wanted to use to destroy the Federation, to prove that peaceful coexistence between alien races was a weakness. Sadly for Krall, he has only located one piece of the device. So far, so Prime. Where history diverges in the Kelvin timeline is with the Enterprise’s acquisition of the second part of the Abronath, nearly a century later, and Krall’s capturing of a Magellan probe which tells him as much. From then on, Krall was hell-bent on luring the Enterprise to Altamid, so he could acquire the second half, assemble the weapon, and then use it to destroy the shining edifice of the Starbase Yorktown, with its melting pot of races representational of the Federation’s great experiment of co-existence. Krall’s place in history wasn’t guaranteed by the success of his plan – he was thwarted by one James Tiberius Kirk – but by his destruction of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the attempt. The great irony

Those moments when even our favorite captains go kinda crazy...

KIRK CRACKS Kirk’s actions in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock are entirely those of an officer out of his gourd. He steals a ship, incapacitates security personnel, and violates direct orders – all to save the supposedly disembodied soul of his dead first officer/ best friend. The only way he gets any reprieve is by saving Earth. Again. Why they ever put him back in command of a starship is beyond us...

JANEWAY JUMPS Krall/Balthazar M. Edison (Idris Elba)

for Edison/Krall, is that his plan – and his fleet of swarm ships – was halted by his own downed vessel, the Franklin, resurrected by Montgomery Scott and alien warrior Jaylah, armed with a high frequency sound weapon designed to disable and destroy the swarm ships. And when Kirk is face to face with the villain, he’s once again more Edison than Krall, thanks to the life-energy he’s been draining from the stranded Enterprise crew. He may look more man than monster, but his actions cement his position as a genuine distortion of humanity, and the epitome of the Starfleet Captain gone mad. It’s almost like he wore his insanity on the outside when we met him, then internalized it and became an even bigger threat. Yet another strong Star Trek metaphor for our times.

Where do you start? The cabin fever of the “Year of Hell”? The ‘by any means necessary’ manhunt of “Equinox”? Any of her dealings with the Borg Queen? Let’s just settle on the actions of her alternate timeline older self in “Endgame”; the Admiral was prepared to steal technology, hijack a ship, coerce Starfleet officers, buck authority and alter time just to get her crew back to the Alpha Quadrant earlier than they did in her timeline.

ARCHER ANGERS Like Janeway, Archer went off-the-rails when the hostilities of the Xindi War transformed the NX-01 from exploration vessel to warship. Any time one is motivated by revenge or hatred, decisions don’t tend to be very well reasoned, and Archer’s command was definitely compromised.

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In the second part of our expansive series, speaking to the performers and production staff who’ve worked on Star Trek over its half-century, we wanted to know how they felt about their contribution to the show, and why they think that Star Trek has such an enduring appeal? Interviews by Ian Spelling

ith its remarkable storytelling, allied with groundbreaking projections of what humanity’s future might look like, Star Trek has inspired generations of scientists, writers, performers, and… hell, even Presidents. It’s an unprecedented entertainment juggernaut that has touched hearts (“He knows, doctor. He knows”), stoked the fires of social change (that Uhura-Kirk kiss), drawn laughter (“I think he had a little too much LDS”), created catchphrases (the not even a quote “Beam me up, Scotty!”), and enhanced the lives and careers of everyone involved. Sadly, some of Star Trek’s most notable figures are no longer with us, so their feelings on the show are represented here in quotes taken from archive interviews featured in Star Trek Magazine, on startrek.com, or in other official sources. This article is dedicated to their memory, and to all who gave of themselves to enhance Star Trek’s rich history.

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GENE RODDENBERRY (1921-1991) Creator of Star Trek It’s an optimistic series. Star Trek not only says the human race is going to make it, but that we’re going to make it in a very civilized way. Looking different and being different will be OK. We won’t interfere with the evolvement of other peoples and civilizations. These are not warships going out, but spaceships exploring for new life, furthering the ideas of humanity. Star Trek shows that we will make it in a way that makes fans want to say, “Wow, I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow morning and see tomorrow begin to happen.” That’s a powerful attitude. It is a very, very difﬁcult thing to achieve. Overall, Star Trek is about humanity, which has made it, with a great world of peace, where the skies are blue and the water is clear. It’s a world where there is a promise for the future. And Star Trek says, “There is a future for us humans… and the human adventure is only beginning.”

CONNOR TRINNEER Charles “Trip” Tucker III, Enterprise Trek seems to be part of the air we breathe. I can think of no other franchise that carries this kind of longevity. It’s nice to have this in my life. It has continued to surprise me with the energy that continues to come out of the fans. It’s not going to go away, and it blows me away, frankly.

“TREK SEEMS TO BE PART OF THE AIR WE BREATHE.”

LEONARD NIMOY (1930-2015) Mister Spock, Star Trek If people were to ask, “What are you thinking now about the original Star Trek series?”, one of the things that comes to mind immediately is the people who have not had enough recognition, and I include Walter (Koenig), and Nichelle (Nichols), and George (Takei) in that, as well as DeForest Kelley, Jimmy Doohan, and Gene Coon, who gave us some wonderful writing, and worked very hard as a producer. Harve Bennett doesn’t get enough credit for having put Star Trek back on its feet when it was beached after the ﬁrst Star Trek movie. Nicholas Meyer did a terriﬁc job of shaping up the script for Star Trek II. Nick and Harve elevated the audience and spread the audience.

HARVE BENNETT (1930-2015) Producer and co-writer, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, and The Final Frontier I resurrected the franchise. That’d be my contribution. There might not have been another Trek had not Star Trek II been such a very viable hit. The Motion Picture was like a last memorial to a great franchise, but it was not the kind of a thing that would stimulate people to come back and see more of the same. My friends say I have something called the Lazarus syndrome, because of the number of times I’ve brought someone or something back ffrom rom ro m th thee de dead ad.. It sstarted tart ta rted ed w ithh Th it Thee Bi Bion onnic back with Bionic Woman. We killed off Lindsay Wagner, W butt Six Million Dollar Man fans nted Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers together. We put her in cryogenic freeze and then brought her back for a series of her own. So, So Lindsay L was my ﬁrst back from the dead. And then there was a fellow named Spock…

WHOOPI GOLDBERG Guinan, The Next Generation, Generations, and Nemesis I did The Next Generation as a tribute to my love of the original series. I liked the idea of being in space. I know I’m never going up for real in anybody’s rocket ship, because I hate to ﬂy. Gene Roddenberry’s vision always included a multi-ethnic group of people. I thought that was pretty amazing.

RICK BERMAN Executive Producer, The Next Generation Co-creator/Executive Producer of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise By the time Gene died, there was no sense of “Oh my God, this great responsibility has been put on my shoulders.” I was doing the job I’d been doing for a couple of years, and Gene had become, in a sense, a “producer emeritus” of the organization. My interest was to continue to try to do the best work I could, and to hire the best people that I could, and to continue on with what Gene set out to do with The Next Generation. It was my hope that the direction we went in with Deep Space Nine – and onward with the other shows – was something he would’ve thought was the right direction. I wanted to be as truthful as I could to Gene’s vision.

HERMAN ZIMMERMAN ETHAN PHILLIPS Neelix, Voyager It was an honor to be part of such a huge and talented ensemble as we had on Voyager. And it is a wonderful feeling to have helped contribute to the pleasure that the Star Trek franchise has brought to so many people.

Production Designer The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise and six Star Trek movies I was able to take a lot of good ideas past and present, from colleagues gone and still around, and make a cohesive visual statement that supported the drama. That’s what you’re supposed to do.

RICK STERNBACH Illustrator, Designer, and Scenic Artist, The Motion Picture, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Nemesis I’d like to think I gave the audiences some interesting, fun, plausible designs to think about, whether it be in the ships or prop hardware. I also hope that the tech manuals and notes to the writers made sense to people. Star Trek and real space exploration have practically grown up together over the last forty years, and there has been so much incredible science and technology that just begged to be worked in.

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MARC OKRAND MAJEL BARRETTRODDENBERRY (1932-2008) Nurse Christine Chapel, Star Trek Lwaxana Troi, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine Star Trek has had its effect. It has gotten people much more interested in science and space exploration. Star Trek did something to promote interest in the Space Age and now that it is upon us, we cannot ignore it. Star Trek gave everyone a look into the future. So many things happening today point to the destruction of the entire world, let alone the entire universe. Star Trek says, “There is a tomorrow, this is what it’s going to look like, and we’ll be there.”

ROBIN CURTIS Saavik, The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home Tallera/T’Paal, The Next Generation, “Gambit, Part I and PPartt II” It’s difﬁ u to compare Star Trek to anything else. It’s so un ue in so many ways. The audience, the incredible, warm devotion of the fans and the nature of the char c rs are unique. Gene Roddenberry created a wonderful dream that has actually come true.

Linguist, credited with creating the Klingon language I never imagined people would study Klingon so seriously, and learn to speak it so well they could actually carry on conversations and translate works of literature, but that’s what’s happened. I’ve become friends with a lot of the really good speakers over the years, so I’m no longer surprised when they speak, but when I hear people I’ve never met before speaking the language – especially in places I’ve never been, or on YouTube – it’s still an odd sensation. Although people still turn to me for new words, and for grammatical refereeing, the language has taken on a life of its own. Even people who don’t know a single word know there’s such a language, and make jokes about it. When someone coughs, someone else says, “Are you speaking Klingon?” “A ki Kli ?”

DAVID MCDONN NELL Former editor of Starlog’s offificial The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager magazines I’m delighted to have been part of this t particular science fiction universe. I was one of those charged with chronicling the phenoomenon over the last 35-plus years. I commissiooned hundreds of interviews – and even did a few myself – with Star Trek actors, writers, directors, producers, mposers, and artists, special effects wizards, com other creators. All you fans out there, who’ve read our various magazines, are my people. Thanks for letting us serve you. I’m immensely proud to be a teller of tales about those who acctually told the many tales of Star Trek.

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NANA VISITOR Major Kira Nerys, Deep Space Nine A good friend of mine, John Stark, who’s a writer in Los Angeles, used to make fun of me when I was in my 20s. He’d say in my old age I’d be in a darkened room, watching myself in old episodes, like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, like some tragic ﬁgure. It was a joke between us. So, when I see DS9 come on, if anyone else is around, I won’t watch it, just because it’s like, “I’m not going to sit in a darkened room like Gloria Swanson!” But if no one is around, I will watch, and I ﬁnd them all engaging.

BJO TRIMBLE Founder (with husband, John Trimble) of the Save Star Trek letter writing campaign We started the Save Star Trek campaign, out of which grew the entire Trek franchise. I feel that sharing my experiences with others helped to keep fan enthusiasm alive during times when Star Trek was not very active, except in re-runs. I have had both wonderful adventures and anguished experiences with Starr Trek. However, it has been indescribable to make so many dear friends, worldwide. Those friends have by far outweighed everythingg else over these 50 years.

JAMES L. CONWAY Director, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise My contribution…? Well, I think by being a fan ﬁrst and a director second, that I really brought a youthful enthusiasm to every episode that I did. To me, they were never work. They were always about trying to capture the Star Trek feeling, trying to do justice to the scripts, which were usually terriﬁc, and trying to make them memorable.

NICHELLE NICHOLS Lt. Uhura, Star Trek People keep saying, “You’ve inspired women of color.” I say, “Yes – black, white, yellow, brown, red, and probably some with green blood and pointy ears!” Gene’s brilliance was in casting people from all over the Earth, and an alien. It made everyone feel like t belonged. I wasn’t a black communications officer – I they w a communications officer who happened to be from Africa, was w happened to have brown skin. I have had women of all stripes who t me how Uhura inspired them to reach for the stars. I’ve had tell w women who’ve named their children after Uhura, and even after Nichelle. But the incredible thing is I’ve had white men come up to t me, “You’ve changed my life.” They’d say, “I came from a racist tell family, until I saw you in that setting on Trek.” I said, “Yes, that is t way life is supposed to be.” the What Gene did by casting us helped change society, change t way people thought, changed the world. It’s amazing. He the w wanted [Star Trek] to be a reflection of the world, and that’s w happened. what

“WHAT GENE DID BY CASTING US HELPED CHANGE SOCIETY, CHANGE TTHE WAY PEOPLE THOUGHT, CHANGED THE WORLD.”

ROBERT BELTRAN Chakotay, Voyager Trek has such a wide spectrum of emotional appeal. We try to project ourselves into the future. There is so much imaginary content in the show which connects with human beings, and their ideas. On a show like Star Trek, you can be transported to the Old West. You can be transported to Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop. The possibilities are endless. I think that’s why Star Trek appeals to such a wide variety of people.

“THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS. I THINK THAT’S WHY STAR TREK APPEALS TO SUCH A WIDE VARIETY OF PEOPLE.” HAL SUTHERLAND (1929-2014) Director, Star Trek: The Animated Series The animated Star Trek has continued showing through the years, to audiences throughout the world. I received a letter from Ukraine, asking for a pair of autographs for a fellow and his brother, who are still viewing the shows. It’s so amazing that the popularity is still there, and seemingly everywhere. Their thanks for the work we did back then is very personal and rewarding.

DAYTON WARD Star Trek novelist Like so many other people of my generation, Star Trek has been an integral part of my life. I watched re-runs of the original series in the 1970s, and the cartoon on Saturday mornings. I played with the action figures and built the models, and I read the first comics and novels while sometimes wondering what it would be like to create such tales of my own. The first piece of fiction I ever sold for professional publication was a Trek short story, and I’m currently writing what will be my 18th Trek novel. It’s a true privilege to contribute, even in this small way, to something that’s entertained and enthralled me, along with so many other fans for 50 years, with no signs of stopping.

DEIRDRE L. IMERSHEIN MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN Star Trek novelist, and story writer of the Voyager episode, “Resistance” For me – and I believe this is true for a great many of us who’ve worked on Star Trek – it’s a chance to ﬁnd the best in myself. Not just the best book, or comic, or TV writer, but the best person. The kind who embraces differences in people, and ﬁercely honors promises, and thoroughly believes mankind has a chance, despite the headlines of the day. Star Trek doesn’t just dazzle us with the stars. It dazzles us with ourselves.

“STAR TREK DOESN’T JUST DAZZLE US W STARS. IT DAZZLES US WITH OURSELVES.”

Joval, The Next Generation, “Captain’s Holiday” Lt. Watley, Deep Space Nine, “Trials and Tribble-ations” I’ve loved the original Star Trek ever since I was a little girl. The show is quintessentially American, and unerringly human: challenging stereotypes, and celebrating themes of adventure, honor and bravery. It has inﬂuenced generations all over the world, and will continue to do so, it seems, forever. To have been even a small part of its history is humbling.

MICHAEL GIACCHINO Composer, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness, and Star Trek Beyond For me, a big part of what Star Trek was the music, and I feel very lucky, and honored, that it’s a franchise I get to be a part of, because it’s one of my favorites, of everything out there in the world. I really love it because I love what it’s about. I love, ultimately, what the themes are. I love the fact that they talk about interpersonal relationships, that they talk about humanity, talk about what’s good for the planet, what’s not good for the planet. All the issues they touch on, you look at and go, “These are the things we should always be talking about in our own world. These are the things we should be discussing.”

LEVA AR BURTON Geordi La Forge, The Next Generation The thing I’ve always a appreciated most about Star Trek is the fact that it portrays a very hopeful fuuture. I believe that television is the most powerful tool we possess in our culture for addressing social growth and change, so I always look for projects that aim to advancce the human agenda. I consider myself fortunate to have been involved with Star Trek, T Roots, and Reading Rainbow, three television shows that have had a major and powerful inﬂuence on the world. Star Trek is a television show about thhe future which inspires us to create the future. It represents what I consider to be the best possible use of the medium.

“STTAR TREK IS A TELEVISION SHOW ABOOUT THE FUTURE WHICH INSPIRES US TO CREATE C THE FUTURE.”

! N I W

FIFTY YEARS OF

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rom the vaults of Star Trek Magazine, this special collection of classic archive interviews tells the true story behind the making of the world’s favorite sci-ﬁ saga, as told by the people closest to it – the stars of Star Trek! Packed with fascinating interviews, and featuring every incarnation of the enduring TV and movie series, familiar faces remember the greatest moments in the 50-year history of Star Trek. With insights from William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard), Brent Spiner (Data), Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway), Jolene Blaylock (T’Pol), and many more, we also discover how actors Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), and the stars of the Kelvin timeline made the characters their own.

To win one of 10 copies we’re giving away of this unmissable compendium, send us the answer to the following Star Trek trivia question:

Which book did Spock give to James T. Kirk as a birthday gift, in The Wrath of Khan?

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It was a weekend that spanned 50 years, a real and a ďŹ ctional universe, two timelines, and a plethora of possibilities. For fans, old and new, Star Trek: Mission New York was an unmissable celebration. Words: Derek Tyler Attico

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MISSION NEW YORK

Members of the Deep Space Nine cast were reunited on Mission New York's main stage (Left to Right: Rene Auberjonois, Cirroc Lofton, Michael Dorn, Terry Farrell, Armin Shimerman, and Nana Visitor)

B Walter Koenig entertains the fans

efore the Jacob Javits Convention Center opened its doors to legions of Star Trek fans, Matt Wasowski, the content director for the convention organized by ReedPop, told me what he thought it was about Star Trek that allows it to endure and thrive. “Hope,” Wasowski replied, “I know that sounds incredibly corny, but Star Trek endures today because it represents the utopian vision of mankind for which we all hope.” Yet it wasn’t the future that Wasowski’s words made me think about, but the past. The 1960s was a tumultuous period in American history. People were looking for something that said they would make it through the mire of mistrust and inequality. Star Trek showed us a different path, a path where people helped each other get through the confusion. A path where humanity came back from the brink, and ended war, poverty, and famine. When I think of some of Star Trek’s most beloved characters and episodes, I see it’s still showing us the path today. Wasowski wasn’t ﬁnished, however; he conveyed what his hopes were for people that attended the convention: an “unforgettable experiences that will truly last a lifetime,” he said. No pressure.

THE MENAGERIE Friday morning, 10am, the ﬁrst day of Star Trek Mission: New York. I’m in a taxi, on my way to the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The cab is coasting along the west side highway, my driver, Mr. Robinson, looks into the rearview mirror and asks me what’s happening at the Javits today. When I tell him, a genuine smile breaks out across his face. “You mean like beam me up Star Trek, with Spock?” I tell him he’s hit the bull’s-eye, and as I look into the driver’s eyes, I realize a door has opened. “Oh man, wow,” Robinson chuckles. “I watched it as a kid, but you grow up. My kids are into it now, so I watch it with them. I try to get them into science and computers and the Universe. There’s probably other people out there, they probably don’t look like human beings, but they got to be out there. I mean, STAR TREK MAGAZINE

The NASA exhibit brought some real-world science to Mission New York

if it’s just us in the Universe, then that’s a waste of Space, right?” I lean back in the seat, as the driver chuckles again and puts his attention back on the road. A New York City cab driver has, perhaps unwittingly, just paraphrased one of the most famous astronomers and cosmologists in history, Carl Sagan. Fascinating. Entering the Javits Convention Center, the open space has a welcoming, exciting air to it. ReedPop is also the promoter of the New York Comic-Con in this same space, and to their credit, this doesn’t feel like a redress of that. An immense Star Trek: Discovery banner hangs above the badge ID collection point, and fans are wearing m every era. Most striking is Starfleet uniforms from the diversity of race, age, and gender; it’s like I’ve beamed sttraight into Gene Roddenberry’s Federattion. “My first and prevvious 78 here in convention was back inn 1978, New York. I was 13,” saays Drr. Gavin a Hunterly-Fenner, a sciience and engineering consultannt. “I said to my Mom, ‘I’ve ggot to go to this’. I’d seen myy first original series episodee probably six to nine months prior, and I was totallyy into it.” Dr. Just talking with D Fenner for a few momeents, his enthusiasm is palpablee; I ask what being here means to him? “Oh gosh, a lot of diffeerent

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Gavin and Miles Hunterly-Fenner

things,” he says, “As a kid I was always interested in science ﬁction, and H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, and I was also interested in science and adventure stories, so I’m pretty sure that’s why Star Trek connected with me. And over the years it’s meant different things at different times. It’s inspired me to go to MIT and get my Ph.D. I was inspired by characters like LeVar Burton’s Geordi La Forge, and Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura too.”

GENERATIONS The following day I investigate the different panels, and it’s clear that there is something for everyone. The original Star Trek series, The Next n, r, and Enterprise are represented equally by actors from each series, andd by fans that pack each panel. Waaiting in line for one panel, fan Matt Hawkinns explains to me why that is. “Well, a lot on, I grew up with Trrekk, and my Dad liked Star Trek,” Haw wkins says, s “He was a military dude, so I grew up in Soouth Korea [where] they showed some Am merican televisiion [shows], not much, but Star Trekk was one of them. And as we goot older, my tastes became differennt, he would like certain things, buut we’d both still watch Trekk togetther. It was a family thing.”

Roaming the halls, I walk past just such a family – a guy, three kids, and a handful of fluffy aliens. The two girls are wearing Vulcan ears and carrying Tribbles, which start to flip out as I wander by. Honestly, to my knowledge I don’t carry a single strand of Klingon DNA. “They do that sometimes,” giggles nine-year old Alexa Ambashawani, stroking one of the critters. “They love Tribbles,” Byron Krull, the grownup accompanying the young trio, exclaims. “We’re going to watch ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’ in the car on the way home, after the convention. They’re in love with Tribbles.” On cue, the girls do something to their furry pets, and the Tribbles begin to purr more calmly. The girls smile. “We’re here for his birthday,” Mya, ten, smiles as she looks at Byron. “It’s an early birthday present for him.” Byron smiles back. “They just got into Star Trek,” he explains, “They just watched their first four or five episodes, so I thought it’d be great to introduce a couple of new generations to Star Trek, and go to my first convention. I’ve been wanting to go to one since I was ten years old.” And so the Star Trek family grows.

ALL GOOD THINGS… When Sunday arrives, you wouldn’t know it’s the ﬁnal day of the convention. The hallways are still packed with Vulcans, Borg, and Starﬂeet personnel. I note that more men and women are wearing the classic, primary-toned uniforms of the original series than from any other period. I guess there’s something to say for the old school after all.

MISSION NEW YORK

Byron Krull, with his Star Trek family

I’m also surprised to see almost as many women in attendance as men. “Star Trek: The Next Generation was my gateway into sci-ﬁ,” reveals Felicia Valagras, “Star Trek has kind of shaped who I am. When I was a kid, I thought it was so smart, and I loved the characters. I’d look at Deanna Troi, and she was such a strong character, and so unique! “My mother’s birthday was last month, and she loves Johnathan Frakes, so I got her his autograph. He was super friendly,” Felicia smiles as she shows me the collection of autographs she’s acquired during the Mission, “And then I met Kate Mulgrew! My sister is a big Voyager fan. She’s

The Star Trek: Discovery banner that welcomed guests to Mission New York

MY EYES ALIGHT ON THAT STAR TREK: DISCOVERY BANNER, WHICH HAS BECOME MORE THAN SIMPLY AN ATTRACTIVE BACKDROP TO THE WEEKEND’S EVENTS. SO MUCH MORE. sick and couldn’t come, but she wants to be in the sciences because of Katherine Janeway. Then I met Michael Dorn and Nana Visitor. I was in awe, and cried in front of all of them, but they were super sweet, and let me ask questions about the show, things I always wanted to know. I’ll cherish those memories forever.” After leaving a NASA panel in the main stage hall, I notice a woman off to the side, people watching. She’s seated in an electric wheelchair, and has a smile that starts from her eyes. “It’s my ﬁrst convention, and it’s daunting at times,” admits Carlista Pruden, “But there’s just so much to see, and I’m enjoying myself so much. “You know, I didn’t really stick with it, but I keep coming back to Star Trek. For me, it’s the originality, and the acceptance of people.” Clarista continues. “I have a disability, I have Cerebral Palsy, so to see them accept everyone, no matter what color they are, no matter what creed they are, everybody is accepted – and if they’re not

accepted, they try to understand them, to emphasis to it, and make it not scary. That love Star Trek.” As the last of the panels ends, and the groundswell of humanity begins to make their way towards the Convention Center exits, I decide to hang back a moment for one last look, and my eyes alight on that Star Trek: Discovery banner, which has become more than simply an attractive backdrop to the weekend’s events. So much more. It was a harbinger of what is to come. Discovery, by deﬁnition, means to search, to uncover, to locate. Not just new worlds and new civilizations, but new ways to understand and accept each other, because that’s what Star Trek does; it shows us the path. ReedPop’s Matt Wasowski had said he’d hoped attendees would have unforgettable experiences. As I think about the people I’ve had the privilege of meeting this weekend, I know that, without a doubt, this has been Mission accomplished.

NEW YORK

ission: New York was not the first time that a Star Trek convention descended on the city that never sleeps – in fact, it was the location of the very first Star Trek convention, period. Back in January 1972, three years after the original show’s 1969 cancellation, the Statler Hilton Hotel welcomed around 3000 Star Trek fans (having expected something more in the order of a few hundred), along with several stars of the original show, series creator Gene Roddenberry, and even celebrated sci-fi heavyweight, Isaac Asimov.

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There’s something about the villains of the Kelvin timeline that divides fan opinion – and it looks like Krall is no different. To try and settle the debate, we’ve beamed our intrepid Away Team of Trek Talkers aboard, to speak their minds about Star Trek Beyond ’s bad guy: Balthazar Edison… AKA KRALL! Contributors: Michael Clark, Bunny Summers, Rich Matthews, and Toby Weidmann

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT…

Uhura (Zoe Saldana) faces off against Krall

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ORIGINANL FICTIO

AN HONOR ABLE FRONTIER

By Paul Reed Courtesy of Cryptic Studios

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

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Posted to a far-flung outpost, matters of war are the least of Klingon warrior Rodek’s concerns when he hears rumors of dishonor at the very heart of the Empire… odek allowed himself a slight smile as the image of his wife replaced the standard of the Klingon Empire on his viewscreen – a smile that was quickly replaced by a grimace as a high-pitched shriek ripped through the air. “B’irja,” Rodek shouted, after a swift volume adjustment. “What is that… wailing? It sounds like a grishnar cat with a pack of targs at its heels!” “That sound, my husband, is coming from our daughter,” replied B’irja with the patience known only to a Klingon mother. “She is to audition for the ‘Epic of Kahless’ in ﬁve days. It is her intent to sing the part of Lady Lukara.” “I see. Well, inform our daughter that she’s off-key,” Rodek grufﬂy replied. “And tell her to win the role!” “Tell her yourself,” B’irja smirked as another female face appeared on the screen – and it wasn’t happy.

“Father,” Juvat growled at her sire, “I am going to win the role. I will bring honor to House Noggra on the stage in the First City. And… you are tone-deaf. I am never off-key.” Rodek guffawed at his daughter’s prideful tone. “I stand corrected. Qapla’!” Juvat gave him a respectful nod in response. “Mother wishes to chew ligament with you about something now, father. Don’t catch any bugs out there!” As B’irja returned to view, Rodek shook his head in amusement. “She’s just like you were at that age,” he said. “Proud, strong… and loud. She’ll make a fine loresinger one day.” His wife smiled in acknowledgement. “If she doesn’t find herself on the wrong end of a d’k tahg first,” she replied. “In that, she’s like you were at that age – quick to anger, and to duel.” “Well, she is quicker than I was in my youth,” Rodek admitted, memories of the sting of a rival’s blade in mind. “That should serve her well!”

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

B’irja nodded. “And how does your duty on the frontier treat you? Do these Lukari show any promise?” “They do,” he said. “They have barely discovered warp drive, yet want to know all of the secrets the galaxy has to offer. They remind me of a young bekk, fresh from the Academy – fearless and eager to prove themselves under the stars, for all who would see!” “I’m told they are not fragile,” B’irja replied with amusement. “Like Vulcans, stronger than they look. Is this so?” “It is. I’ve seen some of their recruits knock an overconfident Klingon trainer to the ground many times. They have an interesting twoblade fighting style. Our daughter could learn from them.” “And what of their ship? Is it as hopeless as they say?” Rodek chuckled. “It is older than my grandfather, and smells of Gorn, but it has been upgraded in many ways. It served them well during its first tour of duty at 20 Draconis.” “Ah,” B’irja said with a slight grunt of disgust. “Many things have been said about that here. There is talk of the Tzenkethi having a new weapon.” “It happened before my arrival. I’ve read the reports, however,” he replied grimly. “If they are true, the Tzenkethi may be on the path to war once again.” “We have fought them before,” B’irja said. “We beat them then, and we will beat them again, should they test our resolve.” “Indeed,” replied Rodek. “And that look on your face tells me we have more serious matters than ancient Lukari starships and new Tzenkethi weapons to discuss.” “It is so,” she murmured grimly. “I have spoken to our mutual acquaintance from the House of Martok, on Qo’noS. There can be no doubt – your assignment to the frontier was indeed a political one. Someone wants you far from the Empire, loDnal.” Rodek frowned at the news, though it wasn’t much of a surprise. He was a decorated general of the Empire, having served with honor in many battles, against many powerful foes; the Tzenkethi, the Dominion, the Federation, and the Iconians. When the orders came to report to a distant

planet in the Alpha Quadrant, to serve as a military advisor to the Lukari – a people barely accustomed to warp travel and the dangers that came with it – his instincts spoke to him, and their message was one of suspicion. “In that, they have succeeded – for now,” he said. “We have honorable allies in many Great Houses, be’nal. Continue your inquiries. I would know why J’mpok and his cronies have sent me here. What do they seek to keep me from?” “I have my suspicions, but…” “Speak then. This channel is secure. I’ve seen to that.” “Very well. I… I believe it has to do with the manner of J’mpok’s ascension to the position of Chancellor. Something mentioned only in whispers, in the darkest corners of the Empire.” “What does that have to do with me?” Rodek frowned. “I had nothing to do with that. It came down to a duel of honor between Martok and J’mpok. J’mpok won, and as the victor he now stands as Chancellor.

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“I would know why J’mpok and his cronies have sent me here. What do they seek to keep me from?” Martok now stands with the honored dead in Sto’Vo’Kor.” “Does he? Or has former Chancellor Martok suffered a darker fate, one that removed him from power and denied him the honorable death of a warrior?” Rodek stared at his wife in silence for a moment. “What you suggest… is dangerous, B’irja. You have served as an intelligence agent for the Empire with honor, but exemplary service won’t protect you from a charge of high treason.” “Nor will they protect my husband,” she replied, grimly. “Your posting to the frontier may be a warning… to me. I might be getting too close to something J’mpok wishes to remain unspoken forever.” “And that is why you should forge on,” Rodek said with a feral grin. “If J’mpok has acted with dishonor, let it be known throughout the Empire! Should the time come for a challenge, I will stand by your side as I always have!” “I would expect nothing less,” B’irja said, her own smile widening. “When that day comes, we will honor our family, our house, and our Empire. Our daughter will not see her parents cower in shame or fear!” “Never,” Rodek said with pride. “Honor and glory to you, my wife.” “And to you, my husband. Serve the Empire well, beloved.” The image of B’irja faded from the screen, replaced with the Imperial Standard. Rodek thought for some time about his wife’s investigation, and the repercussions it could have for the Empire. If Martok still lived, somehow – and through treacherous means – exposing that publically could lead to civil war. His wife now walked on the edge of a knife, and he

along with her. There could be no other way. They were Klingons. Honor demanded it. The truth will be known, Rodek thought to himself. Batlh potlh Iaw’ yIn potlh puS – Honor is more important than life.

ABOUT STAR TREK ONLINE Star Trek Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game from Cryptic Studios. In STO, you can explore the stars as the captain of a Federation starship, seek glory and honor on the bridge of a Klingon Empire vessel, or fight for Romulan freedom aboard a deadly Warbird. Visit iconic Star Trek locations such as Vulcan and Qo’noS, star in your own story, and make your mark on the universe!

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!

ECHOES OF LIGHT In “Echoes of Light”, the latest Featured Episode in Star Trek Online, players join forces with the Lukari – a warp-capable culture taking their ﬁrst fateful steps into the ﬁnal frontier – as an enemy from the past returns to pursue a deadly new agenda!

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

NBC often gets a bad press from Star Trek fans – it was, after all, the network that saw ﬁt to cancel the original series – but it deserves credit as the company that commissioned the series in rou ce t rsar rs a

xa a g ne or r , a f C s go n

i ek k Ma i a el e …

a e

i o e e

Mark Phillips

NE ER

STAR TREK ’S INSIDE MAN AT NBC “

everal i outside on a beautiful, clear evening, and he would look up at the night sky and ask me, ‘Carole, don’t you sometimes wonder what’s out there?’” Carole Lynne Werner Teig, the daughter of NBC Executive Mort Werner, Senior Vice President of Programming at NBC from 1964 to 1969, recalls that fond memory, saying she still wonders, “if his love for Star Trek was related to the inner feelings he had about the mystery of our universe.” Mort Werner is widely credited as the NBC exec most supportive of Star Trek, and key in green-lighting an unprecedented second pilot episode. Teig, who had her own radio show at age six called ”Carole’s Kitty Corner”, says her father’s early career included work in the Armed Services radio, during the WWII era. “He had a radio station, KVEN, in Ventura, California,” she remembers, “By the time he was a major executive in New York at NBC, he was still the same grassroots guy he had been in California.” She says he had “an incredibly intuitive sense of talent,” and knew that Star Trek was special early on, “My Dad

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Gene Roddenberry.” Werner famously noted, “I’ve seen a lot of science fiction movies, but this is the first time I felt I was really aboard a spaceship,” in reaction to Star Mort Werner, NBC Senior VP of Programming, 1964 Trek’s 1964 pilot, “The Cage.” NBC generally liked what they had seen but, for the first time in network history, ordered a second pilot, asking Star Trek struggled with mediocre ratings for a more action-adventure approach. “Where No for each of its three seasons, and creator Gene Man Has Gone Before” sold the show, and Werner Roddenberry expressed dissatisfaction about the was proud to put what he called, “a different and time slots in which NBC placed the show. However, unique” series on NBC’s 1966-67 schedule. he did forge a friendship with Werner and, for “Mort was always very supportive of Star a while, that seemed to ease Roddenberry’s Trek,” associate producer Robert Justman said sometimes fractious relationship with NBC. “After later. “I know Gene thought very highly of him.” all of the fights I’ve had with the network, it’s so Herbert F. Solow, then a Desilu executive, noted, good to have them say, ‘Do whatever you want “Mort and Grant Tinker were two of the staunchest with Star Trek for next season,’” he said in 1967. supporters at NBC of Star Trek.” Werner had a well-deserved reputation for “speaking the truth,” In 1968, as a young adult, Teig recalls her father’s and believed NBC’s programming should reflect reaction to the Save Star Trek Campaign. “He used “multi-ethnic casting,” which was definitely the to talk to me about how dedicated the fans were,” case with Star Trek’s diverse cast.

FAN POWER

DON’T RATE THE RATINGS

Don Durgin, President of NBC’s television division, knew the Nielsen numbers didn’t tell the whole story. “You know a show is popular when its fans stop you on the street, and know who you are,” he said in 1968. “When they ask me how I feel about Star Trek, they always seem surprised when I say I personally like the show.” In the 1960s, a 17.0 rating or higher was required for renewal. During Star Trek’s three years, it had seasonal averages of, respectively, a 17.9, 15.9, and ﬁnally, for its third season, an abysmal 13.5 rating. “From a ratings standpoint, it probably should have been cancelled at the end of its second year,” said third season producer Fred Freiberger. “I always felt NBC showed a lot of patience with the series.”

she says. “He showed me all of their letters, and was amazed and moved by their sincere love of the show. “He fought to keep the show on the air, and he was successful for a while,” Teig remembers, “but eventually executives with more powerful votes than my father took the show off. He was clearly saddened.” The network reluctantly cancelled the show in 1969, but Werner later met with Roddenberry to discuss a series of 90-minute TV Star Trek specials, for the 1970-71 season. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented that from happening. It seems Werner’s love for Star Trek was a family affair and, when the series ended, he gave two of the original Tribbles (from classic episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”) to Teig’s family.

After Star Trek's cancellation, Wern er gifted two of the original tribbles to his famil y

“MY DAD ABSOLUTELY LOVED STAR TREK, AND GENE RODDENBERRY.”

CAROLE LYNNE WERNER TEIG ON MORT WERNER

“My daughter, Jennifer, still has them,” Teig reveals, “They are two of her most prized possessions. She is still a great fan of Star Trek.” Werner’s wife was also a fan, as Teig’s daughter, Jennifer, recalls, “One day, Granny told me she didn’t realize what a big fan of Star Trek I was, or else she would have given me the model she once owned of the Enterprise!” Robert Morton Werner passed away in 1990, aged 73, and his family remember him fondly. “My Dad was an exciting person to know, and what a wonderful gift to have him as a father,” says Teig. She remembers “him playing the piano, teaching me to sing, and asking questions about what is really out there in the universe. Perhaps now, in the eternal realm of Star Trek, he has the answers.”

Carole Lynne Werner Teig wi th her husband, Marlowe

TREK TRIVIA

In a comprehensive poll, conducted by the Broadcast Information Bureau in 1975, hundreds of network executives (including many of those at NBC) were asked to name their favorite television series of all time. Their top three choices: Perry Mason, Your Show of Shows, and Star Trek…

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

JEAN MESSERSCHMIDT

Jean Messers

chmidt

NBC would issue memos to the producers requesting certain changes, to ensure the show complied with standards of “taste and decency.” Here’s what some of those memos asked:

MEMO:

in” “The Enemy With t n dog that does no ie Concerning an al t… en orter experim survive a transp dog at the body of the Please ensure th are er re, and that th e is handled with ca g un Yo e dead animal. no close-ups of th is th if ed may be alarm children with pets t. in ra st th your usual re is not handled wi

to be careful with what they put on air. ndd Star Trek offered up any number of scenes aand subject matters that could have proven too controversial for audiences, and it was the task of Director of NBC’s Standards and Practices team, ean Messerschmidt, to carefully consider every script and scene shot to make sure the show ayed on track. Messerschmidt’s suggestions were a polite w of enforcing the rules of the network, and way her comments had to be obeyed by creator Gene Roddenberry or else Star Trek would not be oadcast over NBC’s airwaves.

Overt violence was obviously a no-no. This meant that a couple of brutal kicks between Captain Kirk and Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” had to be excised from the broadcast print, and a scene of an exploding rock blowing crewman Mallory apart in “The Apple” (deemed as “fantastic” by Jay Jones, the stuntman who played him) was considered too violent to be aired, and was substituted with a less graphic shot. Another edict included minimizing the green blood s orehead, following an seen oozing from S

MEMO: “The Squire of Gothos” During Kirk’s sword-play with spoilt alien brat, Trelane... The passage of the sabre THROUGH Trelane’s body is absolutely unacceptable.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

MEMO: “Mudd’s Women” As crewmen hungrily eyed Mudd’s trio of beauties... Please take care – the men must NOT look as if they are going to devour these women.

a o “The Man Trap.” There were also requests for moral clarity. Roddenberry was instructed to assure viewers that, at the end of “Squire of Gothos,” the treacherous Trelane would be disciplined by his parents for his bad behavior. And, as per the peculiar taboos on TV at the time, there was much furore over making sure women’s navels remained hidden, and caution was advised in revealing Yeoman Janice Rand’s thighs as she fought off the evil Kirk, in “The Enemy Within.”

KEEPING IT CLEAN Messerschmidt, who passed away at the age of 90 in June 2016, took her job seriously. It was her responsibility to ensure that the monsters didn’t traumatize youngsters, and that risqué space costumes didn’t cross over into bad taste. She also cared about Star Trek’s content. “She wanted the show to be believable, yet daring and fun,” reveals her daughter, Karla: “My mother’s biggest problem in her Standards and Practices role relating to Star Trek were the short, short dresses the ladies wore!” Associate producer Robert Justman admired how Jean kept her cool, caught between the crosshairs of creative and corporate pressures, and traditional and avant-garde costuming. “NBC made some mistakes about the show that in 1 in I strongly protested,” recalle i s

MEMO:

“Shore Leave” ing an attacking For a scene featur eventually cut serpent that was … from the episode in showing shots ion Please use caut reptiles are very of the snake. Such y viewers. upsetting to man

pchildren" kiss in "Plato's Ste Kirk and Uhura's discussion al ern int ch mu a as the subject of

“HER JO JOB WASN’T EASY, BUT SHE WAS FAIR, DID HER JOB WELL, AND WAS A VERY NICE PERSON.” ROBERT JUSTMAN ON JEAN MESSERSCHMIDT Her job wasn’t easy, but she was fair, did her job well, and was a very nice person. She had the respect of everyone who worked with her.” Karla also recalls controversy over the 1968 kiss between Kirk (William Shatner) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) in Pll s hildren,” which required 36 takes to get . “There was quite a bit of discussion,” she s. “Remember, this was a different time. But, t on the air, so I suppose it passed muster.” fter Star Trek ended in 1969, Messerschmidt ued working with Broadcast Standards until e s afforded early retirement, and moved to , Washington, in 1988, to be closer to her She spent her retirement enjoying her ndchildren, and participating in Sequim’s c Theater Arts. pite acting as the show’s censor, chmidt was a Star Trek admirer. “We watch a lot of Star Trek at home. People ination, and the story of exploring

TREK TRIVIA

NBC’s censors were once unfairly blamed by some angry viewers for allowing “the Tribbles” to be subjected to “cruel” treatment, such as being dropped en masse over Captain Kirk’s head. Incredibly, these viewers had mistaken the prop tribbles for real animals.

the universe was intriguing,” Karla continues, “I know my mother enjoyed working with Gene Roddenberry. Mom was always able to surprise and delight people when she told them that she had worked on the original Star Trek. She loved the actors and actresses on it, and loved its basic storyline. She really loved working on the show.”

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Todd as Jake Sisko, in "The Visitor"

Klingon brothers Kurn (Todd) and Worf (Michael Dorn)

As the terrifying Candyman, Tony Todd may have played one of horror’s most iconic ﬁgures, but it’s his return visits to Star Trek that continue to deﬁne his career… Words: Calum Waddell

ony Todd – the tall, suave behemoth who played the title role in 1992 horror flick Candyman – could be making his long-awaited return to Star Trek. At the time of this interview, the actor was happy to confide that he was still on the shortlist for a recurring role in Bryan Fuller’s Star Trek: Discovery, leaving fans salivating at the prospect. Time will tell. Having made his mark as cult favorite Kurn, younger brother of Worf, in four episodes of The Next Generation (fans rejoiced when his character returned in Deep Space Nine), Todd also impressed minus Klingon prosthetics with his portrayal of an older Jake Sisko, in 1995’s standout episode “The Visitor.” “Genre movies and shows like Star Trek meant the world to me, growing up,” begins the remarkably youthful looking 61-year-old. “I was aware of the multicultural aspect of Star Trek, and that was a very positive thing for me. And the guys at Paramount have always treated me well – I still audition for projects with them, and they brought me back to that show a lot. Doing television is a great gig – I was in a show called Chuck for five years and it kept me incredibly busy. It was like a proper day-job, and when you are an actor, having that security is a great thing.

“I GREW UP INSPIRED BY GREAT PLAYWRIGHTS, AND GREAT CINEMA, LIKE THE EARLY STUFF OF ROBERT DE NIRO AND AL PACINO.”

Photo: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

INTERVIEW: TONY TODD

“The guys who work on Star Trek are big fans of the genre in general,” Todd continues, “and, after Candyman, I think they know it also reached a little outside audience who would go, ‘Ah, that’s Tony Todd’. But that Star Trek world is so positive to me. And I have been very careful about the image of myself that I want out there…” One such case in point is the little-known fact that Todd turned down the lead role in 1991’s smash-hit thriller New Jack City (which launched the career of Wesley Snipes). The movie was a huge hit back when it was released – political, pointed, and very much of its period. Instead of opting for this very urbane slice of neo-noir, however, Todd instead took the chance to headline Tom Savini’s troubled – but worthwhile – remake of George Romero’s zombie classic Night of the Living Dead (1990). New Jack City caused a box ofﬁce stir, while Night of the Living Dead… didn’t. Looking back, though, Todd has no regrets about making that call. “I honestly don’t like speaking about it too much,” he admits, “but I will give you the simple and truthful answer: I had a few projects on the table at the time, and my son was just born, and I did not want to play a drug dealer. I was just not in the right frame of mind for that role. That is the reason why I did not do New Jack City. On the other hand, I had seen the original Night of the Living Dead when I was still at school. I saw it in a drive-in theatre, and the fact that the lead actor, Duane Jones, was this brilliant AfricanAmerican action hero – one of the very ﬁrst – who did not have to be black to do the role, was a huge inspiration to me. No one refers to his skin color

An elderly Jake Sisko (Tony Todd) awaits "The Visitor"

in the original Night of the Living Dead – George Romero treated him as an equal. The same thing with Star Trek. Everyone is equal on that show, regardless of appearance, right? So when the opportunity came up to star in a new Night of the Living Dead, I barged into the casting ofﬁce and told the director, Tom Savini, that he had to see me. It was one of these things that meant a lot to me, and I wanted to be able to play parts which I personally felt good about.”

COFFEE BREAK Before Star S Trek, Todd appeared in Oliver Stone’s harrowing anti-Vietnam war parable, Platoon (1986).. At the age of 32, the university graduate who hadd been teaching English and performing on the stagge in and around New York, found himself Johnny Depp and Charlie Sheen, acting alongside a

as a GI trekking the humid jungles of Southeast Asia during that ill-fated war. Todd, with his imposing 6’5 frame, stands out as especially camera-friendly – even in the relatively small role that is afforded to him. “Oliver Stone was the guy who gave me my ﬁrst break,” reﬂects Todd. “I was actually working as a bartender in a coffee store. I had graduated and I was living in the Big Apple, doing some stage shows, just trying to get some experience on my CV. Oliver saw me doing a one-man show about Johnny Got His Gun, the famous anti-war novel. I guess, given the subject matter, it was something he was in the right state of thought to see. Well, it turned out to be my

“I CAME BACK FROM ASIA AND THHEN I AUDITIONED FOR THE NEXT GENERATION. I REALIZED THAT THHIS ACTING THING MIGHT ACTUALLY BE GOING PLACEES AFTER THAT!” "The Visitor"

Kurn (Todd) and Worf are reunited to defend the honor of the House of Mogh ("Sins of the Father")

CANDY CRUSH After the rush of The Neext Generation and Night of the Living Dead, cam me the role for which the thespian is best known – the imposing, hookhanded Candyman. Porrtraying a supernatural slasher with a sympathhetic back story (The Candyman is a former slave s who is tortured and killed by a lynch mob, after a he gets a white girl

pregnant), the film was a sleeper smash at the box office. It would also spawn two sequels, albeit with increasingly less interest to the mainstream public who embraced the original. The first follow-up, 1995’s Farewell to the Flesh, was afforded a wide theatrical stint, but the takings were slim. Unfortunately, this meant that the third instalment, 1999’s low-budget Day of the Dead, sank direct to video. Seventeen years after-the-fact and a Candyman IV is looking less and less likely. “I don’t know if it was Star Trek, or Platoon, or Night of the Living Dead,” states Todd when asked about Candyman, “but I was happy to get the role, and I am proud to be associated with a classic original that everyone seems to remember fondly. It was made by good people, Clive Barker is a unique talent, and it is responsible for whatever notoriety I have today. I guess the sequels got more mixed reviews, but there is still a fanbase out there asking for a new Candyman movie. The problem now is that a lot of different companies have a piece of the pie – I know that Sony has a piece, MGM has a piece, Universal has a piece, and they are all competing with one another. I think the only time that these huge companies would be motivated to work as one would be if someone was doing Titanic Part II, you know? So unless all the right’s holders come together we are not going

to see a Candyman IV. However, we all know that eventually they will get around to doing a remake of Candyman – just like they did with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and all these other famous horror ﬁlms. I guess that also means another actor in the role!”

ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ It was also after the success of Candyman that Todd got to flirt with the A-list, with a sizeable part opposite Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris in Michael Bay’s 1996 blockbuster The Rock. Cast as an outright villain, seeking to cause mass damage across America, Todd easily held his own against his more famous co-stars. Indeed, whilst Connery and Cage were on typically overstated form, it was actually Harris and Todd who provided The Rock with its dramatic heft. “It was my one and only multi-million dollar budgeted film,” laughs the actor. “I got paid well, I got to spend time in San Francisco – one of the most famous cities for food in the world, other than Paris – and my death scene is on film for maybe 12 seconds. Well, we took two weeks to shoot that (laughs). I knew that we were going to be treated well on the very first day of The Rock. They took us out to Alcatraz and I saw a helicopter, and what was it? It was Sean Connery’s trailer being dragged to the island. I thought ‘okay – so it is going to be like STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Photo: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

good luck because his ppeople got in touch with me and said that Oliverr had been in the audience and he liked me a lot. I was asked to go and see his casting director, and a few days later I got the job on Platoon. That is how a lot of this business works – just with luck aand circumstance. And I was so excited that I waas dancing on the streets of Manhattan. Oliver is a ggreat guy.” From serving coffeee one day to shooting a war movie in a jungle the next, Todd’s life was about to change direction permaanently. “They sent us all to the Philippines. We went through some real milittary training while we were out there – based outside Manila in the baking sun. We didn’t even know what time it was by the end of that,” Todd laugghs. “Then, all of a sudden, we were making this classic ﬁlm out in the jungles. I came back from Asia and a then I auditioned for The Next Generation. I realized that this acting thing might actually be goingg places after that!”

DIE WITH HONOR

aised by a family friend of The House of Mogh, after his parents were killed in the infamous Khitomer Massacre, Worf’s brother Kurn was a Klingon whose life was dogged by the specter of dishonor…

“SINS OF THE FATHER” THE NEXT GENERATION, SEASON 3, EPISODE 17 Seeking to save the House of Mogh from dishonor, Kurn turns to his older brother, Worf, to challenge the Klingon High Council.

“REDEMPTION” THE NEXT GENERATION, SEASON 4, EPISODE 26 As the Klingon Empire looks set to plunge into civil war, Kurn and Worf again join forces to defend their father’s honor.

“REDEMPTION II” THE NEXT GENERATION, SEASON 5, EPISODE 1 With the Duras family winning the war, brothers Worf and Kurn begin to understand that they are very different Klingons.

“SONS OF MOGH” DEEP SPACE NINE, SEASON 4, EPISODE 15 A dishonored Kurn follows Worf to Deep Space 9, and asks his brother to perform the Mauk-to’Vor ritual – and end his life!

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

this is it?’ The food was spectacular. We got lobster and steak once a week.” While impressed by the lavishness of his blockbuster experience, for Todd the quality of the work itself was more important. “That was one of these projects where everybody, going in, knew it was going to deliver. That was the way everyone treated it, and that was the way it was. We were well looked after,” he says, “Going from being a struggling student, making $50 a week, to a little part in Star Trekk – acting under make-up and having the challenge of bringing out some of that great character – and then Candyman, and then The Rock, the money was just incredible. It was, at the time, the culmination of a hard but very worthwhile journey.” Following a recurring role in the Final Destination series (“I was happy when the fans demanded they bring me back for part ﬁve” he laughs, referring to the fact he was left out

“GENRE MOVIES AND SHOWS LIKE STAR TREK MEANT THE WORLD TO ME, GROWING UP.” Photo: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

DATACORE KURN: TO LIVE AND

Jake Sisko (Tony Todd) must live with the tragedy of losing his father ("The Visitor")

of the fourth), Todd admits that, as he looks to the next era in his career, his ultimate goal remains to embrace great character parts. “I grew up inspired by great playwrights, and great cinema, like the early stuff of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, which really blew me away,” Todd enthuses. “As a youth watching some of their ﬁlms, man, it was revolutionary. I even have an idea for a period movie that I plan to direct. I am going to shoot it with that washed-out, 70s look, and it is going to be a real character piece, like Mean Streets or Midnight Cowboy. I have a huge attachment to the genre stuff, and I love all of it, but I also want to do something that surprises people a little bit, and shows another side to me.” The legendary performer need not worry. By now anyone who has followed the career of Tony Todd knows to expect the unexpected.

TOMMOROW’S TECHNOLOGY TODAY

READY, AIM, FIRE! Theorizing Real Photon Torpedoes

ot satisﬁed with just watching Federation starships launch photon torpedoes on TV, a group of students at the UK’s University of Leicester have taken the Treknology associated with their operation and devised a way it might actually work. Using the premise of an “annihilation reaction,” they’ve proposed using heavy metals as fuel for an electromagnetic “cascade” which, if initiated with enough energy, would generate a matter-antimatter reaction, releasing an enormous amount of energy. In their paper for the student-run Journal of Physics and Special Topics, they suggest iron, uranium, or lead as being most suitable, because their protons have the necessary “cascade length”. If a large hole appears in Leicester’s Physics and Astronomy department over the next few months, you’ll know they were successful in building a prototype…

POWER PILLS

Prescribing Edible Batteries

Do you remember in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when an exasperated Dr. McCoy gives an elderly dialysis patient a single tablet to cure her kidney disease? Absurd, right? Think again. Medical scientists from the Carnegie Mellon University are proposing non-toxic, edible batteries, that could power ultra-low-voltage electronic devices for everything from internal diagnosis to real-time treatment. Issues of toxicity associated with traditional battery technology could be avoided by using melanin pigments, capable of binding and unbinding metallic ions – in much the same way a battery does. By combining equally body-friendly materials, such as manganese oxide and copper, it could provide a bio-degradable, ﬂexible, and safe power source.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Compiled by Chris Dows

ANTIPROTONS OF GREAT CON-CERN Talking of lethal weapon physics, a recent paper from scientists at the UK’s Cockcroft Institute proposes ways to provide better quality antiproton beams for experiments in understanding the properties of antimatter. Their simulation of cooling instruments to stabilize beam production will be key to faster results at establishments such as CERN – all well and good, until you remember the planet killer in “The Doomsday Machine” used a pure antiproton beam to destroy entire worlds...

THE ‘PHAGE TO CURE DISEASE One of the main contributing factors to the danger posed by E.Coli bacteria in food and water is how long it currently takes to detect it. Thanks to a new sensor, developed at the Photonics Research Centre at Canada’s University of Quebec, sample analysis time could be as short as 15 minutes – a significantly faster and potentially life-saving advance. The sensor uses an optical fiber, onto which viruses that connect onto and kill bacteria are bonded to its surface. E.Coli, attracted to the bacteriophages on the sensor, is quickly detected thanks to a shift in the wavelength of light transmitted through the fiber.

DONUT OR NOT DONUT? The Future Shape of Fusion Energy What shape should the magnetically shielded, plasma-generating chamber (known as “tokamaks”) in a fusion reactor be? Up to now, these have been donut-shaped, but there is increasing evidence to support a spherical design – much the same as those on the Kelvin timeline U.S.S. Enterprise (see right), and those powering Deep Space 9. The main reason for this shift to a sphere concerns the cost to produce magnetic containment ﬁelds and, crucially, the enhanced generation of high-pressure plasmas to facilitate fusion reaction. Up until now, fusion reactors have not proven to be commercially viable, because they require more energy to operate than they generate. A team at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory want to incorporate the design into a next-generation reactor, such as their proposed Fusion Nuclear Science Facility. Crawling inside, as Kirk did in Star Trek Into Darkness, is not advised as part of the suggested operating procedure.

THE REAL GENESIS EFFECT

Making the Uninhabitable Habitable In one of the closest real science/Treknology connections we’ve seen for years, a recent essay by Professor Dr. Claudius Gros, at Frankfurt’s Institute of Theoretical Physics at Goethe University, investigates how life might be generated on exoplanets that are uninhabitable. With scant regard to the Prime Directive, Gros suggests employing an unmanned, micro-spacecraft to synthesize and then implant single-cell organisms on an uninhabited target planet. He proposes millions of years of evolution could be side-stepped, and an ecosphere of unicellular organisms established relatively quickly. Unfortunately, “Quickly” doesn’t mean the swiftness of the Genesis wave in The Wrath of Khan’s, but actually more like a hundred million years...

GETTING RIPPED Being an active Starship captain can be very hazardous for your wardrobe – we’re talking James Kirk’s shirts here. Perhaps he’d be interested in the recent American Chemical Society paper on a squid protein-based fabric that can repair itself?! Not during a ﬁght with a Gorn, obviously.

GOLDILOCKS AND THE TWO CONDITIONS As if ﬁnding an exoplanet within the socalled “Goldilocks” habitable zone – not too close but not too far away from its closest sun to have the potential for liquid water – wasn’t hard enough, researchers at Yale University have suggested there needs to be a second Goldilocks factor. Their studies have concluded that a planet must also start its life with an internal temperature that, like the fairytale says, is “just right.” Then again, who’s to say what different life forms might exist? Turn the page to ﬁnd out, in Futures Past…

ABOUT CHRIS DOWS

Chris Dows has been involved with Star Trek for 20 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, Dows gained his PhD in 2007, and lectures in writing.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

By Chris Dows

EXTREME EXISTENCE It’s Life, Jim – But Not as We Know It

Humanity’s ﬁrst contact with extra-terrestrials may not involve green-blooded humanoids with pointy ears, but something altogether weirder – and not dissimilar to life-forms discovered living in Earth’s most hostile environments…

he search for life on Earth and within its oceans has consumed humanity since prehistory. In the same way as new stars and galaxies have been added to astronomical catalogues since ancient Egyptian times, so too have animal and plant species been classiﬁed

1773

German zoologist Johann Goeze discovers tardigrades – microanimals that can survive in extreme temperatures and pressures

1818

In the Arctic, British Admiral Sir John Ross discovers deep sea life at a depth of 6,550 feet

and recorded as man’s colonization of the planet continued. When the limits of habitability were reached, exploration and investigation turned to hostile environments – and the search for truly “alien” creatures began. However, this search has not been without

controversy. When the Italian Friar Giordano Bruno suggested in 1600 that life might exist on far-off worlds, he was burned at the stake for heresy. In 1841, the azoic hypothesis of English naturalist Edward Forbes postulated that, in the same way life decreases as one goes higher in the world, so too must the deep oceans be devoid of life. Luckily, the discovery of fauna at depths of 2,600 feet by Norwegian scientist Michael Sars disputed Forbes’ theory, and by 1872 the Challenger Expedition, led by Scottish marine zoologist Charles Wyville Thomson, produced a significant amount of evidence of varied deep-sea life. More ship-based exploration continued, but in 1930, American naturalist William Beebe and deep-sea diver Otis Barton became the first men to dive to 1,430 feet in their Bathysphere. Their direct observations of jellyfish and shrimp showed that life could exist in the deep ocean. In 1960, extraordinary organisms capable of living in total darkness and extreme pressures were discovered by the Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, in a dive to the Western Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench – some 35,236 feet deep. By the 1970s, technological advances in microbiology led to an entirely new field of research, and the classification of “extremophiles” – bacteria capable of existing in extremely hostile environments. Through the 1980s and 1990s, this led to the classification of genus and sub-genus of microbes living in everything from rocks in cold deserts (Hypoliths), to organisms that can

1959

Cornell University’s Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morris publish “Searching for Interstellar Communications”

1960

Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dive over 35,000 feet to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, in the deep sea vessel Trieste Photo: rook76 / Shutterstock.com

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

1977

Investigations into hydrothermal vents in the Paciﬁc Ocean ﬂoor reveal a colony of Giant Tube Worms

TREKNOLOGY

SETI N

survive nuclear radiation (Radioresistant). Bacteria has subsequently been found living half a mile deep under the Antarctic ice shelf and at the very lowest part of the Earth in the Mariana Trench. There are currently 18 classiﬁcations of extremophiles, and as the list expands, so too do arguments that life on other planets is increasingly likely, due to the intensely dangerous conditions under which these creatures survive – and indeed thrive – on our world.

The Search for Life Beyond Our World o discussion off the h searchh ffor lif life in extreme conditions is complete without mention of SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. American astronomer Frank Drake launched SETI in 1959, subsequently adopted by NASA in the late 1960s. In 1992, a formal SETI program was initiated, only to be cancelled by US Congress a year later. However, the work continues thanks to the SETI Institute and SETI League.

TO SEEK OUT NEW LIFE Some scientists have extended the categorization beyond micro-organisms to macro-organisms, those that can be seen unaided with the human eye. This has led to the categorization of a wide range of “polyextremophiles” – organisms capable of survival in a combination of hazardous conditions.

IN 1960, EXTRAORDINARY ORGANISMS CAPABLE OF LIVING IN TOTAL DARKNESS WERE DISCOVERED. One example is the Giant Tube Worm; not only can it withstand great pressure, it also ﬂourishes in seawater containing very high levels of hydrogen sulﬁde. Recent experiments conducted on the International Space Station with tardigrades (micro-animals discovered over three hundred years ago), have shown them capable of reviving after being subjected to the vacuum of space – as if being able to survive for 120 years without eating isn’t enough.

1983

Loricifera – microscopic creatures that survive in salt-saturated brine because they do not need oxygen – are discovered in the Mediterranean

2014

With one of the United Federation of Planets’ top priorities being to seek out new life, it would be impossible to list all of the life-forms discovered by Starﬂeet throughout its history. Instead, consider some of the extreme species discovered across three of the four quadrants. Life-forms based on Xenon (Voyager’s “Hope and Fear”), Solanogen (TNG’s “Schisms”), and Silicon (the Horta in “Devil in the Dark”), have been encountered, all of them exhibiting very different characteristics to our own, and capable of surviving in environments unsuitable for human

life. Onne of Deep Space Nine’s most respected residennts, the shape shifter Odo, existed as a morphoogenic matrix capable of withstanding virtually all environmental conditions. Theere were even species capable of living in space, surely s the most hostile of all environments. Most were non-corporeal beings based on energy, suchh as the Beta XII-A entity that caused so many problems for Captain Kirk and the Klingons in “Day of the Dove.” The malevolent Crystalline Entity from Next Generation episodes “Silicon Avatar” and “Datalore” preyed on electromagnetism from living material, making it a formidable and deadly foe. Then there were those that inhabited previously unknown dimensions to our own, like Species 8472 of fluidic space, and perhaps the most difficult to comprehend, two-dimensional beings living in cosmic strings (TNG’s “The Loss”). Regardless of whether the genus thrives on or away from our planet, there is one thing that brings every species together – regardless of conditions, nature will find a way for life to exist, regardless of how impossible it might seem.

2152

First contact is made by the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01 with the Tholians, a hermaphroditic species who live at around 404 °F

A team of Antarctic scientists discover micro-organisms half a mile below the ice shelf

2368 2267

The Horta, a sentient, siliconbased life-form capable of living in solid rock, are discovered on Janus VI

The U.S.S. Enterprise-D is endangered by a nitrium parasite, after its nitrium-chrondite-rich asteroid home is destroyed

2371

After causing accidental harm to a vast nucleogenic life-form, the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager repair the living cloud

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

G N I S I A

S W O R B E EY

T R O H R S

S P HO

Right before Kirstie Alley auditioned for the role of Lt. Saavik in Star Trek II: The Wratth of Khan, a horriﬁc car accident took the life of her mother and left her father in a coma. Alley wouldn’t leave her father’s side until he was out of the woods, so the audition had to wait. As her father lay unconscious, Alley held up a headshot of herselff, whispered to him that she wanted to be an actress, and that she had a big audition coming up. He woke up that night, and when Alley walked in soon after, he said, “So, you’re gonna be an actress?” Words: Ian Spelling

tar Trek Magazine: When your father woke up from his coma, you had no idea that he’d actually heard you saying you wanted to be an actor, right?

KA: I liked Spock. I was a big Spock fan. The only thought I really had was that I knew I wanted to be an actress, I knew I wanted to be in a movie, and I knew that my eyebrow could raise up. I thought, “I can do this. And I can look like Spock. I can make this happen.” So that was about as much thought as there was.

Kirstie Alley: I didn’t know he’d heard me saying it to him m, really, because he was in bad shape. The good news is, after that, he just got better and better and better. And I think two STM: What kind of notes did director Nicholas Meyer give you days laater I ﬂew into L.A. I went right to Paramount [and] I read during ﬁlming? for all thhe executives. They asked me to sit in the other room a second, then they walked out and said, “We don’t want to keep KA: Nick was just great, and gentle. He’s the kind of director that you waiting. You have the job.” I started crying. I almost started gives you very few notes, but they are spot-on. He would crying now, when I repeat the story. It wouldn’t be a good scene describe things to me in simple terms. That’s why he’s a brilliant in a movie, beecause it seems like it would never happen, and it director. He would never overwhelm me. He’d just say, “Although doesn’t. So I am m forever, ever, ever grateful. she’s part-Romulan, she’s not as angry as she is inquisitive,” and, “She doesn’t understand about the Kobayashi Maru. She’s STM: Saavik was half-Vulcan, half-Romulan. What interested you pissed off that she’s been tricked, but it’s more from the most about her as a character? standpoint that she doesn’t understand someone tricking

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

SHORT HOPS

Spock (Leonard Nimoy) with protégée Saavik (Kirstie Alley) in The Wrath of Khan

someonee without a solution.” He’s not oone of those directors ws across the room. that bellow with some that I’ve worked w make you feel like an idiot. He’s sort of a quiet director, I would say. But Nick Meyyer, he’s so brilliant, and he haas such an incredibly high IQ, that he doesn’t need to use a lot of woords to articulate. STM: Who in your family was most excited that you were in a Star Trek moovie? more excited that I didn’t KA: I think they were all just m come back to Kansas with my taail between my legs (laughs), because I would say thhat “I’m giving myself

exactly one year to woork as an actress, and have that be how STM: If you could play Saavik agaiin, would you be open I make my living.” And the year was running out. And I to that? really meant it. I thought, “If I can’t make it in a year, what the hell am I doing?” I reaally would have gone back to KA: I don’t think I would do it in a series. I certainly wouldn’t Kansas. I wouldn’t have feltt like I had much of an option, whatever Star Trek II want to do anything that would lessen w because I didn’t start acting until I was 30, so it wasn’t like was. I was so grateful for that role that I w wouldn’t do anything I was an 18-year-old ingénue with all this hope laid out in that I felt would compromise that experiencce. I thought Star front of me. I was like, “You’re pushing it, sister.” Trek II was an outstanding movie. If they wannted me to be Saavik in a wheelchair, or Saavik in a nursing hhome… I don’t STM: The story goes that the studioo and producers wanted know. I would love to play the character again, bbut it would you back for Star Trek III. Why did thhat not work out? have to be something that I felt would not degradde that movie at all. KA: I honest to God don’t know exactly what happened. I wanted to do Star Trek III. I remember thhem making an STM: You’ve done TV, films, comedy, and drama. Where do you offer. This is how the offer came across too me – and this consider yourself most at home? may or may not be true – but it was like, “We want her to do it, but we’re not going to pay her very much to do it.” It KA: Well, the world I’m most comfortable in is comedy, forr came across like, “We’re sort of interested, but not very sure. And I’m probably most comfortable in three-camera interested.” That said to me, “Oh my God, did they not like comedy. I love that format. It’s sort of like summer camp. It’ss what I did?” You have to think about why. I’d had a lot of very easy to go into work every morning and rehearse all work after that, between Star Trek II and Star Trek III, and I week, and then shoot the show. I guess, because I have done it thought, “Well, I don’t think I would do it for the same so long, that’s probably the easiest. And in the final product, money I did the first one for, when I’d never worked.” It what I love seeing is a movie. Movies are slightly grueling – went about that far. That was it. So for me, it didn’t feel you’re in hair and make-up at sometimes five in the morning, like a real offer. sometimes even earlier, depending on what you’re doing. It’s

“I THOUGHT STAR TREK II WAS AN OUTSTANDING MOVIE.”

such a different process. When I see things I’m in, my favorite is probably the big screen. My most un-favorite thing was doing a reality show, which I won’t ever do again. STM: Star Trek is celebrating its 50th anniversary. What does it mean to you to be a part of this enduring, global phenomenon?

KA: Well, I think it’s pretty special. I was a 15 or 16-year-old, I guess, when I started dating, and I was laying on the sofa in Wichita, Kansas, watching Star Trek with my boyfriend while making out, and saying, “You know, I could be Spock’s daughter.” I’d say things like that. And then to have been part of it for real, and to have it start a career that seemed impossible anyway, because I was 30. I mean, there were just so many things working against me that I couldn’t be more grateful and happy that I’m part of something that I think is a phenomenon. I’m glad that I’m a little part of it.

CAREER NOTES

Alley brought pathos, humor, and a touch of ﬂirtatiousness to Lt. Saavik, and shared tremendous chemistry with co-stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, but as a result of behind-the-scenes issues, the actress did not return for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, or Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Saavik was instead portrayed by Robin Curtis). Alley has since enjoyed a glittering career in ﬁlms, stage and television, with credits as diverse as the Look Who’s Talking movies, to Dancing with the Stars. Alley is most famous for playing Rebecca Howe in the long-running sitcom, Cheers.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

Photo: Lev Radin / Shutterstock.com

Kirstie Alley as Saavik

T R HO

S P O

SHORT HOPS

F O CH

T L A S

L E P

IM G A

R D AN

She played a pair of freaky aliens that made life difﬁcult for Captains Pike and Kirk in the earliest days of Star Trek, but as one of Hollywood’s top stuntwomen, Sandra Gimpel went where few women – or men – had gone before…. Words: Mark Phillips

ritics don’t scare easily, but Los Angeles Times writer Hal Humphrey shuddered, “This has to be one of the most loathsome-looking monsters ever seen on o television.” He was talking about the salt-sucking creature that made Captain Kirk scream, in i Star Trek’s television debut episode, “The Man Trap.” Viewers might have been surprised to discover that, inside the gruesome costume, was a petite and personable dancer named Sandra Gimpel, who had also played one of the Talosians in the show’s original pilot, “The Cage.” Gimpel thanks Carl Joy, head of Central Casting, for her good fortune in helping Star Trek make its name. Sandra Gimpel takes a breather from her salt “[He] would send me out for all of these strange and creature costume crazy roles because he knew I could handle them,” she says, “As a dancer, I was well coordinated.” “The Cage”, ﬁlmed in late-1964, had Jeffrey Hunter’s Captain Pike kidnapped by the Talosians on Talos IV. Meg head move move. Looking Lo back now it was like something a kid Wyllie, Serena Sande, and Georgia Schmidt played the main could put together, but it worked very well. You had to aliens, but Gimpel stood alongside them. “We had these big, squeeze the ball in the rhythm of what you were saying, to bald heads, and that required two and a half hours of makematch what the Talosians were thinking.” up. We didn’t actually talk, we communicated through Between takes, “we would read a book or just sit down. telepathy – you could see veins moving as we were thinking,” You couldn’t go outside, otherwise the make-up would melt in Gimpel recalls, “To achieve this, they ran a tube down from the sun. It was pretty hot to begin with, under all that!” the head veins, down our backs, then along the arm of our Gimpel recalls director Robert Butler and his crew “were costumes, to an air ball that we held in our hands. Whenever I squeezed the ball, the pumped air would make the veins in my good about keeping an eye on us – they would try to shoot our STAR TREK MAGAZINE

scenes together, so we didn’t have to wear that stuff all day.” She also found creeator Gene Roddenberry to be an encoouraging presennce. “He was on the set all the time. Talk aboutt a hands-on person.” She found the ﬁnal cut of “The Cage,” “really cool,” aand was glad the two-part “The Menagerrie” used most oof her Talosian footage.

ALT SHAKER Two years latter, and Gimpeel was back on the Desilu soundstage too film “The Mann Trap.” Like the complicated prosthetics of the Talosians, the M-113 “Salt Vampire” (McCoy’s ex-flam me who turns out to be an alien that drains all the salt from peeople’s bodies)), “was a very warm costume,” Gimpel reemembers. “I w would step into it, they zippered me up, and then t put my arms and head on. It was a really weird-looking monster, m and thhe costume was very heavy. It was hard to moove in and manipulate into the positions the director wannted you to be in.” Her biggest challenge was w to try and kkill Kirk. “The hands Gimpel (Right) as a Talosian, in "The Cage" and arms had these suckered cups, and I had to put them right on Shatner’s face. I was young, and this was alll still rather f me to t new to me. I remember thinking how strange it wass for be doing this to the star of the show!” she laughss. “I had to place the monster’s arms perfectly around his headd, and everyone was laughing about me touching him. But Shaatner d it!’” was fine with it, and he urged me, ‘Go ahead, do it, jusst do worrking Gimpel ran into Shatner years later, while he was w out at Billy Blanks’ gym studio, and he got a kick out of discussing her days as the salt monster. “He couldn’t belieeve how much time had passed since we had done that show.” Gimpel still feels the episode holds up well, “I think everyone – including me – loves anything about space travel, and the series was so well done. Even today it’s not hokey or childish, and the writers did a very good job of making you care for those characters.”

“YOU COULDN’T GO OUTSIDE, OTHERWISE THE MAKE-UP WOULD MELT IN THE SUN.”

Sandra Gimpel

LOOST ININ SPACE

Gim mpel is a fourth-degree black belt in karate, and still workking ass a stunt coordinator, having suffered only a couple of broken ribbs during a spectacular career that has spanned over 50 years. A professional dancer from 1960, Gimpel was performing in live shows at the Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica whhen shee won a dancing role in the classic film, West Side Story, only o too have to turn it down because her thenemployers, Westing W ghouse, wouldn’t release her from her contract. She also beccame one of Elvis Presley’s favorite dancers, appearing in 15 of his films. It was in 19666, wheen Bill Mumy (Will Robinson) began to outgrow his Lost in Space double, that Gimpel was interviewed by producer Irwin Allen andd stunt coordinator Paul Stader to become the actor’s new w stand-in. Stader asked Gimpel if she had ever thought of doinng stunnts. “That’s how I becamee a stunnt-person in showbusiness,” she says, “I worked for threee yearrs on Lost in Space, and loved

SHORT HOPS

“THE WRITERS DID A VERY GOOD JOB OF MAKING YOU CARE FOR THOSE CHARACTERS.” The Salt Vampire meets an insoluble end (above)

every minute of it.” Since the Lost in Space people were with her work on Star Trek, they cast her in many of the roles on the show, including a giant fly that scared the ge terrified Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris). Working for the rival shows wasn’t a problem for Gimp employers, or her co-stars. “I know Bill Mumy loved both Lo Space and Star Trek,” she confirms, “I don’t recall hearing an animosity by anyone, from either show.” Indeed, Paul Stader, legendary stuntman who taught Errol Flynn how to fence, was once summoned from the Lost in Space set to choreograph the gladiator swordplay in Trek episode, “Bread and Circuses.” Gimpel still keeps in touch with Mumy. “I just have to remember to call him Bill rather than Billy,” she laughs. “He’s grown up to be an amazing person, just a really great guy.” She also appreciated Irwin Allen’s loyalty. “He liked my work, and he hired me for many of his shows, like Land of the Giants, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Towering Inferno.” At the time of this interview, Gimpel was preparing to appear at her first Star Trek convention (Star Trek’s annual Las Vegas shindig in 2016), and looking forward to a reunion with Voyager’s Captain Janeway – Gimpel worked as stunt coordinator on TV’s Mrs. Columbo, and doubled for its star, Kate Mulgrew. “I can’t wait to see her again,” smiles Gimpel, who remains grateful for those early Star Trek roles that kick-started her long career. “It was just such a great experience,” she says, “and a really fun show to have worked on.” (Left) Hallmark's salty "Man Trap" ornament

Gimpel was the stunt double for Bill Mumy on Lost In Space

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

BOOKS - COMICS - COLLECTIBLES

INTERVIEW

PEN > BAT’LETH While Pocket Book’s Star Trek novels reconnect us to the characters we love, often bridging narrative gaps between TV and movie canon, the diverse range of nonﬁction Star Trek publications can truly go where no books have gone before. Star Trek Magazine spoke to writers Andrew Fazekas, Rich Michelson, Robb Pearlman, and Paul Ruditis at September’s Mission New York event, to ﬁnd out more about their new contributions to Trek’s literary universe. Words: Derek Tyler Attico

RICH MICHELSON FASCINATING: THE LIFE OF LEONARD NIMOY Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Star Trek Magazine: You’re a poet and an award-winning children’s book author. What is it about working in those disciplines that speaks to you? Rich Michelson: I write for children because that is how we build a better future. The books we read as children often have the greatest inﬂuence on the adults we become. Change always starts with the young, and a story like Leonard’s can be a great inspiration. He was a kind, talented man, and a role model for millions.

STAR TREK MAGAZINE

“Fascinating” is a beautiful and immersive read, for any age group. How did it develop into a children’s book? I’ve written many other picture-book biographies, proﬁling well-known ﬁgures. But it never occurred to me to put Leonard’s story down on paper. It wasn’t until I watched Leonard Nimoy’s Boston – a documentary originally conceived by his son, Adam, to capture Leonard’s story for his grandkids – that I realized Leonard’s life story was as remarkable as any I’d written about, and would be perfect to inspire the next generation.

Can you talk a little about the process of working on this book, and then ﬁnishing it without Mr. Nimoy? I didn’t want Leonard to know I was writing the book until I was done. I didn’t want the extra pressure on myself to meet a deadline, or to explain why I’d abandoned the project if it was not working out. I sent my draft to Leonard on Thanksgiving morning, 2014, and I heard back immediately. Leonard was the most prompt and faithful correspondent I have ever had – we exchanged 3,459 emails over the last ten years of his life, almost one per day. He replied, saying “It’s wonderful, and I’m ﬂattered. It is an amazing piece of work, and I love that you decided to do it.” He was looking forward to publication, and the last conversation we had was about this book. He passed away soon after. But we

Leonard Nimoy as Spock

“I REALIZED LEONARD’S LIFE STORY WAS AS REMARKABLE AS ANY I’D WRITTEN ABOUT, AND WOULD BE PERFECT TO INSPIRE THE NEXT GENERATION.”

You and Mr. Nimoy were friends for many years. Where do you think you connected the most? We had similar working-class backgrounds, though he grew up in a Boston home, and I grew up a generation later in Brooklyn. We bonded over a love of art and literature, but mostly we just had fun together. And our wives also got along very well, which always helps! Plus, it certainly didn’t escape notice that we looked a bit alike, and were often mistaken for father and son. Eventually, he became much like a father to me, and I was the beneﬁciary of his wisdom, advice, and generosity. What message do you hope children will take away from reading this book? I hope young readers, and everyone, will understand how Leonard Nimoy’s story exempliﬁes the American experience, and the power of

pursuing your dreams. Leonard was the son of immigrants, which is especially pertinent in our times, and he “reached for the stars,” but he was always proud of his heritage, and he never forgot where he came from. What did Leonard Nimoy teach you about life? Leonard was the most optimistic person I know. He made every moment count, and he loved life. He taught me to enjoy the journey. Leonard was truly a renaissance man. He read widely and loved art. Mostly, however, he was just pure fun to be around. He was a great storyteller, and laughed more than anyone I know. Leonard has touched many lives, and inspired people around the world. Obviously, he will forever be known as Spock, but it is the humanity that Leonard brought to the half-human character that will be his legacy. He is a champion for everyone who ever felt like they didn’t ﬁt in – which, at one point or another, is all of us.

Miller / Shutterstock om m

continue to travel together; he remains in my thoughts and my heart daily.

RICH MICHELSON

to Vi

Author Rich Michelson

Leonard Nimoy

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ROBB PEARLMAN STAR TREK: THE REDSHIRTS LITTLE BOOK OF DOOM Publisher: Insight Editions Star Trek Magazine: What is it about writing humor that you enjoy? Robb Pearlman: I think it has to do with my personality. I’ve been in publishing for most of my adult life. I enjoy the process of looking at the lighter side of things and getting people to laugh; I think it’s important.

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What’s the hardest part of writing humor? You’re working completely on your own, in a room with no one else to talk to, no one else to look at. It’s so easy to get inside your own head, and you can write a joke, but unconsciously it’s an inside joke for yourself. Then, when it goes out to the world, the reader may not know what

you’re talking about – and if you have to explain the joke too much, what I’ve learned is it’s actually not a joke at all. What was the inspiration for “Redshirts”? I always liked the secondary characters in movies and TV shows. I was thinking that the red

TRICORDER shirt joke is so huge in pop culture, now. It has a life of its own. He never has a name; he’s always dying. I was thinking there must be something going on with him. “Redshirts” has laugh-out-loud jokes, and some visual gags that tap into pop culture. Can you talk a little about the artist you worked with, Anna-Maria Jung, and what went into putting the book together? I think the visuals tell half of the story. Anna– Maria Jung is a contributor to the Star Trek 50th art collection, and when I saw some of her pieces I knew she was it; I didn’t want anyone else to do it. We’ve never physically met, but we were both on the same page, and wanted the book to do well. This is your third Star Trek book. What is it about the humor in Star Trek that appeals to you? For me, Star Trek has been underrated when it comes to humor. The humor isn’t in every episode, but even those little snippets make it a more relatable human experience. I think I like looking at things from a slightly different angle. When I dig out those gems of humor, and the fans are in on the joke, I just get a kick out of that.

“THE RED SHIRT JOKE IS SO HUGE IN POP CULTURE, NOW. IT HAS A LIFE OF ITS OWN.” ROBB PEARLMAN You’re something of a pop culture expert, so how would you rate Star Trek’s cultural importance? So much of pop culture comes from Star Trek. I’ve never known a world without Star Trek. I think it’s impossible for something that has the impetus that Star Trek had, even at the very beginning, to not inﬂuence all of us.

Robb Pearlmann

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TRICORDER were writing really helped manage the work. Our primary motivation was to keep the book accessible, but it had to be incredibly detailed at the same time. We wanted to reach a wide range of readers, both the newly initiated and the hardcore fans. The Star Trek universe is so intertwined that it’s impossible to give a broad overview without dipping into the minutia. The real challenge was maintaining a balance between the two, as we raced toward the deadline. Is there a section of the book that you’re particularly proud of? The Starfleet chapter was my favorite. Writing about all the characters I love was like getting to visit with old friends. It was also a fun challenge to decide which facts to include and which could be left out. When you’re constrained to a specific wordcount, it forces you to take a hard look at the characters and the ships (because I consider the ships characters), to distil exactly what information is key to their history, and what can be left on the metaphorical cutting room floor. And it’s such a large chapter that once it was done it meant a major chunk of the book was written. So that was a plus too!

PAUL RUDITIS THE STAR TREK BOOK Publisher: DK Publishing Star Trek Magazine: You’ve written companion books for franchises like Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Walking Dead, and The West Wing. What’s different about writing for Star Trek? Paul Ruditis: I love all the books that I’ve written – every one of them has been an incredible experience – but Star Trek truly is a lifestyle. And it’s a lifestyle I was part of before I ever started working on it. Star Trek has been with me my entire life. My father introduced me to the show as a young child, but it wasn’t until The Next Generation premiered that I became a true fan of the series. To contribute

PAUL RUDITIS even a small part to something that has been in my life, for as far back as I can remember, is an incredible experience. Reading “The Star Trek Book”, it’s clear you’ve left no stone unturned. The attention to detail is incredible, yet the book is completely accessible to old and new fans alike. How long didd it take to complete? T ree months. The most insane t ree months of my life that it neearly killed me. I could never have done it without Sandy Stone and the rest of the team that contributed to the book, but it was a incredibly intense schedule. an T Thankfully, the type of book we g

Paul Ruditis rechargin

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“THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE IS SO INTERTWINED THAT IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GIVE A BROAD OVERVIEW WITHOUT DIPPING INTO THE MINUTIA.” What is the main draw of books like this for fans? That they ﬁnd something they didn’t know before, or are reminded of something they forgot. Mainly I just hope people enjoy them. But what I really love is when they bring new people into the community. There’s a point for everyone where Star Trek becomes more than just a TV show or movie. Where it becomes a community. The books are just a tiny part of this whole experience, but something like “The Star Trek Book”, in particular, is a way for bringing people into this incredible universe. There’s nothing better than that for me. What I love about the DK books especially is the way that parents give them to their kids to share their love for Star Trek. When that happens, I’m over the moon.

ANDREW FAZEKAS STAR TREK: THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE. Publisher: National Geographic Star Trek Magazine: You’re an amateur astronomer, science consultant, and columnist for National Geographic. Where did your love for astronomy come from? Andrew Fazekas: My early childhood. When I was ﬁve or six, I would go stargazing with my dad. Every Sunday I’d climb into my parents’ bed and watch Star Trek; I’d barrage my dad with questions about every episode. I think I wore him down, because he actually ended up buying a telescope. My dad’s a science geek himself; he’s a scientist – cancer research – and a medical doctor with a science lab. I was very lucky that he was always very open to letting me explore whatever I wanted to as a child. By the time I was 12 I had my own telescope, and Star Trek sort of started all that.

“I HAVE SUCH A PROFOUND APPRECIATION FOR HOW MUCH THE FRANCHISE ACTUALLY LOVES SCIENCE.” ANDREW FAZEKAS

imagine this book being done anywhere else; my idea found the perfect home with National Geographic. And now that I’ve had such an opportunity to really delve deeply into Star Trek, I have such a profound appreciation for how much the franchise actually loves science. What’s your favorite part of the book? The stargazing aspects really hit home for me. I was so fortunate to have the amazing National Geographic cartography team. National Geographic is known for its maps, and the cartographers really made the maps accessible to help people trek the night sky. What do you think readers will get from “The Ofﬁcial Guide to the Universe”? I hope the book will open their eyes to the universe. Astronomy can be done by anyone, anywhere. I had a book signing at a museum, and I met a parent that didn’t know anything about stargazing. He took a look at the book, and said he thought it was something he and his kid could do together, over the weekend. I thought that was cool.

What sparked the idea for this book? I was doing a lot of public stargazing parties with my local astronomy club, and I realized [that] when I showed people celestial objects that were on Star Trek and existed in the real world, it would really engage my audience. So, I started to make a list of astronomical objects that were in Star Trek, or very similar real life counterparts. Flash-forward 20 years later, I’m writing a column for National Geographic, and they tell me they love what I’m doing, and wonder if I have any book ideas I’d like to suggest to them. I told them about my Star Trek idea, and they loved it! I can’t STAR TREK MAGAZINE

REVIEWS

A historic moment at Destination Star Trek Europe, 2016 – do you recognize all of the familar faces?

DESTINATION STAR TREK EUROPE October 7th to 9th 2016, NEC, Birmingham, UK

ollowing Destination Star Trek’s debut in London, and subsequent trips to Frankfurt, Germany and again to London, this year the event set down at the NEC Convention Centre, Birmingham, UK, to celebrate Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. The event, running across the weekend of October 7th to the 9th, featured an impressive guest list, and organizers Massive Events somehow conspired to arrange a much longedfor reunion of William Shatner, George Takei, and Walter Koenig, sat at their stations aboard a recreation of the original Enterprise bridge set. It was an unexpected moment that was a big hit during the press call that kicked off the event. There was genuine excitement amongst attendees in the cavernous NEC exhibition hall, where they had the chance to meet the stars of Star Trek at autograph sessions, photo shoots, and even on the bridges of two Enterprises (the original and Next Generation variants). The addition of a Klingon bridge photo opportunity was incredibly popular, and unique combination shoots, such as the two Daxes (Terry Farrell and Nicole De Boer) quickly sold out.

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A stand-out panel featuring Gowron (Robert O’Reilly relishing his in-character appearance) and Terry Farrell saw the Jadzia actress candidly discuss why she left Deep Space Nine and, for the first time, we saw the extent of that decision, and the pain it still holds for her. Wil Wheaton’s panel was also a big hit, and William Shatner’s first British performance of one-man show “Shatner’s World” on Saturday evening was a true highlight. The joint panel between George Takei and Walter Koenig was both funny and poignant, as they discussed the legacy of Star Trek and spoke of friends no longer with us. Adam Nimoy’s panel on the making of his documentary, “For the Love of Spock,” was a great way for fans to remember his father, Leonard Nimoy, and the impact Spock has had upon Star Trek and popular culture. After-show parties at the nearby Hilton hotel drew large crowds, with a Trek disco on Friday, and the debut UK performance of The Star Trek Rat Pack getting fans dancing on Saturday. The NEC itself felt vast when compared to previous venues, and there was definitely a different feel to this year’s event. Despite fewer

"Shatner's World"

Beware of the Warrigul, on the Klingon bridge

vendors selling Trek goodies, and a big room to ﬁll, the line-up made for another epic Destination experience, and a success for Showmasters, Massive Events, and Media 10. Bunny Summers Watch out for our full feature on Destination Star Trek Europe in the next issue of The Ofﬁcial Star Trek Magazine.

STAR TREK: LEGACIES BOOK 2: “BEST DEFENSE” By David Mack • Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books

he second installment of Pocket Books’ 50th anniversary “Legacies” trilogy plunges us right back into the middle of the Federation’s cold war with the Klingons. David Mack picks up the mantle from Greg Cox to continue the story of Star Trek’s enigmatic “Number One,” as she reveals a mystery which connects all three commanding officers of the Starship Enterprise. The mysterious Number One finds herself in a rather strange alternate universe, on a desperate mission to track down her former shipmates. At the same time, Kirk and Spock must track down the Transfer Key artefact in order to successfully rendezvous with Number One; unfortunately, there’s the small matter of a Romulan spy to deal with first. Meanwhile, the stakes get even higher when Ambassador Sarek puts in an urgent request for aid, during the middle of peace talks with the Klingon Empire. David Mack is a maestro at political intrigue, and his cleverly constructed maneuverings in the Federation-Klingon Organian peace talks are a tour de force of Star Trek writing. We may very well know the outcome, but the ever present risks of galactic war were enough to keep me reading into the small hours, as the Romulans threaten to destabilize the peace talks and unleash all manner of chaos and carnage on the quadrant. For those of you who were not so keen on the central role that Number One took in the first book, rest easy. While still maintaining the momentum of her storyline in the Jatohr alternate universe, the author dials back the amount of time that plot is given, and opts to focus more on the (far more interesting) political machinations involving Kirk, Spock, Sarek, and Councilor Gorkon. We’ve come to expect this level of quality from David Mack, yet it’s still a delight to pick up one of his new works and see just how far he’s pushed the envelope this time. Highly recommended! Adam Walker

KIRK & SPOCK 4.5-inch NYCC Exclusive Release • Titans Vinyl Figures

caled-up from their original, 3-inch tall incarnations, super-sized versions of Kirk and Spock from Titans Vinyl Figures put in an appearance at New York Comic-Con, to the delight of action ﬁgure fans who can’t get enough of miniature plastic representations

of their favorite sci-ﬁ icons. As “action” ﬁgures go, these bigger little guys still don’t move an awful lot, but the increased scale does show off their accurate head sculpts to great effect, and Spock’s teeny, tiny Tricorder is to die for. Christopher Cooper

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STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO – ISSUE 1 By Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen • IDW Comics

f there’s one thing Star Trek Beyond achieved quite conclusively, it was to draw a line under IDWs ongoing adventures. After all, without a ship to carry the crew on exciting new voyages, where could the series go? Having chronicled the between-movie voyages of the Starship Enterprise, including its truncated five-year mission, the ever-reliable Mike Johnson spins the only logical answer – sending the crew off on new assignments while they wait for the 1701-A to t la e its way into active service. i Spo and Uhura finding lifee o N c natting, Scotty lecturing lcan f ci cksu e ro ki at Starfle t a emy, a Suluu fi ngg s f First Officer on the U. S onco , find Kirk,, C y, and Chekov serving n aboard U.S.S. Endeavor. Kirk slips effortlessly into his ew p ain’s

chair, while his new crew (including a Romulan First Officer) seem pleasantly surprised to find he’s not the superhuman of rumor. Poor old Bones, on the other hand, has to play second fiddle to a typically gruff Tellarite chief medical officer who is even more abrasive than our favorite country doctor. But just as we’re getting used to the new status quo, the U.S.S. Concord comes across… something! That something is so dangerous, soon lookss li C tain Terrell’s welcom a dition to ee ngs might not amount to much moree thhan a two-page meeo! Suffice it to ay Kirk’s End avorr picks up the Con ’s subsequent distress call, andd Jim n s to call n the expertise of a fo c od e a il ng message from an unknown enemy. Johnson’s tale captures the

more mature Enterprise characters as seen in d perfectly. It’s also great to see ancillary c ar terrs like Terrell, and some of the gang from I ’s recent Starﬂeet Academy series, come intoo play – even if only for a few panels. Talking of panels, Tony Shasteen’s art is sharp, and the clliffhanger ending suggests he’ll be having fun drawing some familiar baddies as the story progresses. And watch out for George Caltsoudaas’ stunning, stylized cover art, which alone is well worth the cover price. You won’t be ablle to resist grabbing issue 2. Any such efforrt would be futile…! Christtopher Cooper

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 or @larrynemecek on Twitter.

ALL WRAPPED UP Why does Kirk wear the command wrap-around? I don’t get the point of that top. In the Star Trek Encyclopedia it says that it’s probably to make it easier to tell Kirk apart from his evil twin (in “The Enemy Within”), so why continue to have Kirk wear it? Was it a fashion statement from the design crew? AMY KARAS Kingman, AZ

As Kirk once said, “Rank has its privileges,” so maybe he just liked wearing it! But seriously, there isn’t a military service in the world that has one catch-all uniform for its troops – an idea that costume designer Robert Fletcher was able to explore witth a plethora of “realistic” uniform designs foor The Motion Picture. The original series didn’t have the budget to do the same, and thatt command wrap-around cost real monney, so there was a ﬁnancial obligation to make good (and repeated) use of it. Trekk doess have a tradition of giving its captains a special “command” style uniform, that stands s apart from the day-today kit of regulaar crewmembers. In reality,

that’s a perk afforded to the lead actor in their respective series, and included Patrick Stewart’s gray shirt and maroon jacket from TNG Season 4, and William Shatner’s movie vest, with each fitting in with regulation Starfleet design. So, yes, Amy, the original wrap-around of “The Enemy Within” helped audiences root for the right Kirk, but it really did have a point beyond that. Incidentally, designer Bill Theiss created an upgraded wrap-around for Season 2, adding a black collar trim, which appeared in seven different episodes. Still, even that disappeared for the final season, perhaps because William Shatner famously reported that the soft fabric was somewhat demanding on one’s physique.

"Now they're b both wearing green!"#WhichKirkIsWhich

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tragic heroism that the expedition has gained in pop culture, I don’t know whether Starﬂeet would want to hang that kind of infamous bad mojo on a brand-new ship! However, the truth is that director and admitted fanboy Justin Lin proudly admits that the ship is ingeniously named for his dad Frank, who was responsible for introducing his son to the wonders of Star Trek in the ﬁrst place. Check the close-up shots of the ship’s dedication plaque, and you’ll see an ever-so-slight gap between the K and the L: Frank Lin. Sweet!

Ezri (Nicole de Boer) – Dax's left or right-hand symbiont?

LEFT IS BEST During Deep Space Nine’s episode “Afterimage,” Quark and Ezri Dax were talking about the differences between her and Jadzia Dax. Ezri took a drink of bloodwine and hated it; Jadzia loved bloodwine. The cup was in her left hand, and she told Quark that she used to be right handed, implying that she was now left-handed. However, in the episode “Shadows and Symbols,” Ezri threw a baseball with her right hand. Again, in the episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite,” Ezri threw another baseball with her right hand. Did I miss something? MICHAEL RAPER Grover, CO That is some eagle-eyed Ezri-watching, Michael! But you are right: Watch Nicole deBoer in any of her live appearances, as well as her scenes as Ezri, and you can see she is deﬁnitely lefthanded. She even triggers left-handed, as you see when she wields the infamous TR-116

assassin’s riﬂe, in season 7 episode “Field of Fire.” As for the exceptions you cite, her handedness didn’t ﬁgure in the plots, but was demanded by the lining up of camera angles, rather than choices made by the writers. Besides, despite all that left-handedness, some people do just throw opp-handed. Then again, maybe in moments of sporting stress – such as playing the Logicians or saving Sisko – perhaps a little Jadzia wiring snapped back in, for just a second?

LET’S BE FRANK(LIN) Was the name of the U.S.S. Franklin, in Star Trek Beyond, deliberately chosen in memory of the 19th Century Franklin Expedition, which went missing during its mission to ﬁnd the Northwest Passage? O. ADAMBERRY Gibralter

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.

That’d be a great homage, and perhaps in canon it could have been – although even with the

The U.S.S. Franklin prepares to leave Altamid (Star Trek Beyond)

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CANON FODDER

THE CREW CONUNDRUM

Sometimes, during our ongoing mission to plug the holes in Star Trek’s ever-expanding canon, a question explodes right under our noses that seems so obvious that we can’t think why we never asked it before. Maybe you’ve never thought of this one either: Was Spock the only alien serving aboard the Enterprise during the original ﬁve-year mission?!

hen a friend of mine recently suggested Spock was the only non-Human on Starﬂeet’s ﬂagship, my “head canon” was gob-smacked. Of course diversity would be represented among the Enterprise crew, crew I protested! Surely it was merely the budget and schedules of those 1960s productions (remember, Spock’s ears took over two hours to apply each day) that prevented us seeing more exotic aliens also serving on the bridge? My friend, a longtime fan, was equally adamant that of course there were no other aliens, because that would “take away from the power of Spock” as an outsider. But The Animated Series

deliberately addressed the imbalance, I argued, with the addition of aliens (an Edosian), and the Caitian female, M’Ress. “Well, those were just the animateds,” I was told. Say what you like about their status in canon, which has swung in and out of fashion over the decades, decades but right now The Animated Series is acknowledgeed as very much in. I rest my case. As if on cue, another factor in the debate was echoed by reader O. Adaamberry, whose timely question arrived soon after all this erupted, asking: “In the original series episode ‘The Imm munity Syndrome,’ it’ss mentioned that the U.S.S. Intrepid is crewed entirely by Vulcans. Why would Starﬂeet retain ssome starships to be crewed by juust one

Was Spock (Leonard Nimoy) the only Enterprise alien?

race? In the case of Vulcans, wouldn’t that run contrary to their philosophy of IDIC, and therefore be ‘illogical’?” That reference is to 400 Vulcans aboard a sister ship to Enterprise, with its crew of 430. That sounds like enough wiggle-room for a few other species to represent aboard Intrepid, surely? Maybe they had a human science ofﬁcer…?! I had to know the answer, and who better to ask than someone who was in the room – legendary Trek writer and archival memo producer, Dorothy “D.C.” Fontana? “The issue of non-humans (i.e. aliens) serving on board the Enterprise never really came up,” Dorothy told me. “Unless they were ‘special’ to a story (Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans, etc.), we generally avoided the question. It was never a matter of Spock being ‘the only alien on board,’ or anything like that. “Of course, on the Animated Series – as with starships, planets, vast sets – all we had to do for the aliens was draw and animate them,” she continued. “Roddenberry wanted to have M’Ress and Arex on board to take advantage of that freedom, to show we could and did have aliens in the crew. But in live action TV, [that was] far too expensive – and that was the only consideration.” So, there you have it. Thanks, Dorothy!

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CAPTIONS LOGGED W Archive images, lost and found…

ith our illustrious science officers taking center-stage this issue, here’s an outtake featuring T’Pol from an infamous, early moment in her Starfleet career… This is scene 23, shot on November 26th, 2001: Malcolm Reed is stranded aboard an increasingly chilly “Shuttlepod One,” in the season 1 Enterprise episode of the same-name – and he’s started seeing things! It’s just another day at the office for actors Jolene Blalock and Dominic Keating, who can’t resist making light of their close quarters moment… moment

Should Trip be jealous, or are these Enterprise crewmates merely comparing their dental records? You tell us! Send your Trek caption to startrekmagazine@titanemail.com, and we’ll print the best in our next issue.

PREVIOUSLY, IN

CAPTIONS LOGGED... AND THAT’S WHY IT TAKES THREE FERENGI TO SCREW IN A LIGHT BULB! 96

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Caption Logged by

LEE FLETCHER Spokane, WA

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Starﬂeet’s Most Secure Career Choice?

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