Topic: Ron Moore Talks Star Trek

[TheJudge]

Ron Moore is the genius behind some good DS9 episodes, and of course the coolness that is the new BSG.  Many people are starting to compare BattleStar Galactica and Enterprise, but Ron's lastest blog holds no reference to his own show, BSG, but rather focuses on the strengths of Star Trek.  Let it stand on its own as a clarion call...

February 04, 2005
Trek goes back to the Fans
Now that Enterprise has been cancelled, we're about to enter a period not seen since the orignal series ended its run just a few weeks before Apollo 11 landed on the moon: a time without a Star Trek film or TV project on the horizon. From the reaction I've seen thus far, the consensus view seems to be that this is merely a pause in the trek, and that before too long, we'll be talking about the newest take on Roddenberry's universe, be it television, feature, animation or sock puppet. I tend to agree, insofar as I know first hand that Viacom considers "the Franchise" to be one of their crown jewels and I've personally heard them refer to the "next fifty years of Star Trek" as a corporate priority.

So Star Trek isn't dead and it isn't dying. It has, however, entered into an interregnum, a pause in the treadmill of overlapping productions that have become the norm for the series that was once considered "too cerebral for television."

Certainly there is sadness in this news. There has been a Star Trek production either in prep or being filmed on Stages 8 & 9 on the Paramount lot since 1977, when Star Trek: Phase Two began initial construction for a second series featuring all the original characters but Spock (these sets were then revamped for Star Trek: The Motion Picture). An entire infrastructure has been built around the productions, staffed by people whose involvement in the Franchise goes back over two decades. The dedication, passion, and talent of these artisans and craftsmen cannot be overstated. The unsung heroes of Trek, the people who sweat every detail, who take the time to think through continuity and try to make the vast universe consistent, people like Mike and Denise Okuda, Dave Rossi, Michael Westmore, Herman Zimmerman, Bob Blackman, and many others, are about to leave and take with them an enormous body of knowledge and talent that cannot be and will not be replicated again. That is cause for both tears and eulogies as the close of Enterprise signals the true end of an era.

However, there is another side of this story, one that perhaps is somewhat more hopeful and positive: Star Trek has now been returned to the care of its community of fans.

I say returned because there was a time when the fans were the exclusive owners and operators of what would later become the Franchise. From 1969 until 1979, a genuine grassroots movement of fans gathered together in conventions, published newsletters (in the primordial ooze of the pre-internet era, no less), wrote scads of fan fiction, created their own props and uniforms, and dreamed the dream of what it was to live aboard the good ship Enterprise.

I was one of those fans; I was a kid growing up in the 1970's who found Star Trek in strip syndication and bought every book and magazine I could lay my hands on and every piece of fan merchandise I could con my parents into buying and I can tell you that some of those efforts were abysmal and some were brilliant, but all of them were driven by a sense of passion rooted in a belief that Trek was our secret club. We, the fans, embroidered the Trek tapestry while the powers that be at Paramount dawdled. In those years, the best stories told not those written by Gene or any other "professional writers" (no offense to the short-lived, but well intentioned animated series), but by people like Sondra Marshak, Myrna Culbreath, and Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Who are they? Fans. People who loved Star Trek and were able to breath life into it during the interregnum between the show and the Franchise.

Star Trek now returns to the care of its fans and its fans can decide for themselves what kind of experience they want to have during this next interregnum. They can consume the seemingly endless licensed products available to them from the Franchise, everything from barware to shower curtains, and read only the mainstream, officially licensed and sanctioned books, or they can go their own way. Some of the most daring and creatively challenging Star Trek material has been created not by Paramount, but by amateurs, who simply had an idea for an interesting twist on the Trek universe. Think Kirk and Spock were secret lovers? Wonder about the social and cultural history of the planet Vulcan? Believe the Mirror Universe is more fascinating than our own? All these topics and many others were, and are, tackled by fans in their own fiction, their own stories, their own dreams.

Step back from the merchandising. Rediscover the joy and wonder of the universe Roddenberry created. Talk to people who share your common interest and who understand the difference between phaser mark I and mark II (duh!). You don't need another series to enjoy Star Trek. You need only your own imagination and the desire to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Got to love the Kirk and Spock secret lovers line...and a cool ode to Fanfic there (I do believe we have a few people on this board -including me- who he speaks to in this blog).  So far, this is the best Speech/blog/essay I've seen on the cancellation of Enterprise and what it means...and it's on the Sci-Fi Channel's official BSG site.

[J. Carney]

Got to love the Kirk and Spock secret lovers line

No, you don't.

Sorry, Judge, that was cleared up in Star Trek TMP. When you read the novel that was pulled from the whole script (including the scenes that didn't eventually make it into the movie) Kirk is marrried to the Lori (the woman that dies in the transporter accident) and specifically states that he couls neverhave anything like that 'with a creature that only came into sexual heat every 7 years.'

[Commander La'ra]

While I agree with Carney that I just do not see a Kirk and Spock relationship as possible, the rest of the article hits home like a GPS guided bomb.

I may have personal reasons for thinking so, however.

Oh...and if there was any male-male action in Trek it had to be Garak and Bashir.

*flees!*

[toasty0]

Got to love the Kirk and Spock secret lovers line...

...and Bones was the whinning, jealous b*tch always wishing that Kirk found him as exotic as Spock? That explains Bone's constantly trying to ply Kirk with Romulan ale and brandy. 

[TheJudge]

Carney, you took my Kirk/Spock paring far too seriously.  I for one would NOT want to see such a relationship.  Both characters are decidedly heterosexual and that's the way it is...I always did wonder about a possible Bones/Chekov pairing though. 



Oh, and the only 'out' gay character was of course Lt. Hawke from First Contact, and that wasn't on-screen but in the books.  Jadzia Dax's lesbian fling doesn't really count, of course because the other woman use to be Dax's wife when Dax was a male, so it kind of just goes right out of the human sexuality spectrum (same thing with the first trill we ever saw who loved Dr. Crusher).

Finally, Wesley, well he was Data's love slave but that doesn't count since Data's an android.  Apparently he was the only 'top' with enough stamina to satisfy Wesley's super-human cravings.

All fanfiction aside, though, Ron Moore hit the nail on the head.  I was surprised to see how...welcoming he was of fanfiction, even gay fanfiction, which was why I referenced the Kirk/Spock pairing.   Now I think I'm going to write an Apollo/Baltar fanfic from BSG and send it to him for his amusement.  Yes, let's see, after Episode 13 Baltar decides to get his revenge against Starbuck by sleeping with Apollo.  Hmm, it should be hilaroius (if you haven't seen Episode 12 or 13 yet, just wait, you'll understand why in the teaser at the beginning.)

[J. Carney]

Carney, you took my Kirk/Spock paring far too seriously.  I for one would NOT want to see such a relationship.  Both characters are decidedly heterosexual and that's the way it is...I always did wonder about a possible Bones/Chekov pairing though. 

Nah, Bones had an ex-wife (don't remember her name, daughter was Joanna) that he banged on an as-needed basis.

Checkov I could see- but I think that he'd be the dashing, boy-in-every-port type.

I've read a couple of Voyager books (one was named 'Reflections') that made passing and not-so-passing references to a pair of homosexual men (NO, not Tom and Harry). I never watched the show... was anything like that ever hinted at? I'll see if I can dig the books up, but I think that they went into the community pile while we were deployed.

[Dracho]

I always figured Scotty was secretly into BDSM with McCoy.

[Commander Maxillius]

Y'all're freaks.  Everyone knows they were all Uhura's bitch at one point or another.

[GDA-S'Cipio]

An entire infrastructure has been built around the productions, staffed by people whose involvement in the Franchise goes back over two decades. The dedication, passion, and talent of these artisans and craftsmen cannot be overstated. The unsung heroes of Trek, the people who sweat every detail, who take the time to think through continuity and try to make the vast universe consistent,

 

<bitter cynic mode>

Umm.... which series is he talking about again?

</bitter cynic mode>

-S'Cipio the Cynic

[TheJudge]

An entire infrastructure has been built around the productions, staffed by people whose involvement in the Franchise goes back over two decades. The dedication, passion, and talent of these artisans and craftsmen cannot be overstated. The unsung heroes of Trek, the people who sweat every detail, who take the time to think through continuity and try to make the vast universe consistent,

 

<bitter cynic mode>

Umm.... which series is he talking about again?

</bitter cynic mode>

-S'Cipio the Cynic

Ah, but the difference is that he TOLD US BSG would be different, he didn't try to hide the changes or blow them off.  He said we are re-doing this show and making it more reflective of the modern age. 

Even with all the dysfunctional relationships between the main characters, they'd turn around and kick the ass of the first BSG without having to break a sweat.  Starbuck alone would kick the butt of all the original viper pilots, with only Dirk Benedict giving her a challenge, and then not for long. 

[Dash Jones]

yeah right.  Sorry if I disagree with your assessment.  After watching the BSG finally, I really don't see what the draw was from people.  It seems full of a bunch of whiney people who wouldn't know how to fly if their life depended on it.  The flying reminds me more of a video game than real flying...the older BSG had more items relavant to flying...on the other hand I kind of wondered Why they would need an altitude indicator and other items for flying in the skies in space...as shown in the original BSG.

There have been several scenes in the new BSG that reminded me of the Wing Commander and StarLancer games...even down to shooting at incoming torpedos and other such nonsense...which in the original BSG would have been impossible...you can't shoot down something that travels faster than your own ammo, or your own ship.

Starbuck reminds me of a feminine rights lady who acts tough, but it's all in reality hollywood, put them up in a real scenario and they have nothing.

I loved the original Starbuck because he kept his cool, he was cool...even now, he's cool.  He was the cocky starwars Han Solo ripoff.  On the otherhand, the new Starbuck is some masochaostic female who is the epitome of what woman's rights want females to be, but are so out of it that the truth (I mean she has no muscles, they could at least get a female that was either not chubby, or at least had some REAL muscles to be comparble to a mans) that for mr they don't seem plausible. 

To tell the truth though, after finally watching the opener, it's lost my interest.  Then again there seems to be very little in American television that seems to catch my interest nowdays.  Most is sex violence, and soap opera and very little that is intellectually stimulating, except news and the history channel

[TheJudge]

You're weird and the original starbuck sucks compared to the new one.  All he did was whine about the trouble of double-dealing two women and clearly had trouble beating Apollo when it came to flying.  I mean, c'mon, that woman with the quadruple eyes and ears was giving him big hints on the casino planet but he was too busy trying to stare into her multiple eyes to see the obvious going on right under his nose! 

Oh, and the reality of him rebuilding a cylon?  C'mon, what is he master pilot, master gambler, master smoker, master ground soldier, AND master roboticist?  Let's not forget his whininess when he was accused of murder and complete inadequacy to help in his own defense.  Oh, and when he kept on firing at Count Iblis even after he'd seen Apollo's weapon have no effect was really, really stupid.

Let's talk about the tech of the old show as well.  Let's see...lasers.  We all know that lasers are completely useless in space. First of all, the damage ratio as range increases is totally stupid.  Real space combat is going to take place with projectile weapons fired at high speeds creating a literal wall of objects with high inertia that will slam into oncoming objects with such force that they obliterate them.  What's more, their range is only affected by the affect of gravity upon them (I believe something  says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, does it not?)  Lasers are only effective from very short range, which is why ballistic objects are the weapons of choice in any space combat situation.  Further, look at those old vipers.  How the hell did they move around?  There were no maneuvering jets for them. The new vipers actually obey the laws of physics more than the old ones, but they old ones were our childhood loves so they have to be revered more...

Believe it or not, shooting at incoming missiles and torpedoes is the #1 defense used by real-word vessels and would continue to be the #1 method in space.  Shields remain the realm of far-out there sci-fi.  Armor, point-defense, missile interception are the real methods of the day, and the near future.  Lasers take too long to 'burn' through their target.  It's much easier to just put up a wall of metal with high levels of kinetic energy to wipe out the things in the way. 

[Dash Jones]

They used Laser Torpedos in the old series, which were different than simple lasers.  As for projectiles in space, with the ships going as fast as they are, the ships themselves would outrun any projectiles since the projectiles would become too massive in requiring enough force to overcome the speeds at which they would need to fly in combat.  In otherwords, they'd use lasers because the projectiles are too slow.  Even if they did use projectiles, with missiles coming faster than they would on earth...even now we normally don't use Fighters to shoot down missiles, we use cannons and guns on the ships themselves.

Lasers make more sense, as one can actually normally see the ships in the battles, hence the lasers would be effective.  If a ship were to be far enough not to be effective with lasers, then it would be a small dot or unseen.  I would assume Laser Torpedos are more effective than lasers.

Starbuck might have whined, but he was loved by all...well at least me when I watched it last year, decades after it was made.  This new Starbuck, she seems like a bad guy, a character I simply don't like.  Heck, I like Baltar better than her! 

[Capt_Bearslayer_XC]

Um.... we DO use fighters to shoot down missiles.... what do you think the F14 was made for?

F14 Tomcats/AIM-54 Phoenix combo was designed specificly to shoot down bombers AND missiles.

Assuming that their targeting and sensor systems are much better than ours, hitting a missile with guns operated by a human pilot doesn't seem all that far fetched.

Not too mention that since speed is relative..... a fighter going mach X has a good chance of catching and shooting down a missile going slightly faster than itself.

[Capt_Bearslayer_XC]

Oh, also, you can always fall back on the old 'wall of lead' theory that if you place enough ammo in something's path, you are bound to hit it.

[Dash Jones]

Um.... we DO use fighters to shoot down missiles.... what do you think the F14 was made for?

F14 Tomcats/AIM-54 Phoenix combo was designed specificly to shoot down bombers AND missiles.

Assuming that their targeting and sensor systems are much better than ours, hitting a missile with guns operated by a human pilot doesn't seem all that far fetched.

Not too mention that since speed is relative..... a fighter going mach X has a good chance of catching and shooting down a missile going slightly faster than itself.

Well, I guess I learn something everyday.

[Commander La'ra]

British Gloster Meteors used to shoot down V1's, too.  That was in 1944...

[J. Carney]

British Gloster Meteors used to shoot down V1's, too.  That was in 1944...

And we used fighters to shoot down Kamikazis in the Pacific, which though they were flying airplanes, amount to the same thing as a guided missile. Especially in this guy's case... the MXY7 Ohka Cherry Blossom- it was really a rocket-powered missile with a pilot.

[Commander La'ra]

Are we belaboring the point or simply indulging our ever-present urge to discuss military hardware?

[J. Carney]

Are we belaboring the point or simply indulging our ever-present urge to discuss military hardware?

Uhhh...

Uhm....

What was the question again?