Vic
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IDW Publishing is firing off some Star Trek fireworks this week with the release tomorrow of two explosive Trek comic books, namely Star Trek: Discovery: Succession #3 and Star Trek New Visions: An Unexpected Yesterday. StarTrek.com is pleased to share details, as well as preview pages and the covers of both titles.
Star Trek: Discovery: Succession #3 is written by Mike Johnson and Kirsten Beyer, with art and an A cover by Angel Hernandez. This miniseries unfolds in the Mirror Universe of Star Trek: Discovery and delves deeper into the characters you only thought you knew. Star Trek: Discovery: Succession #3 runs 32 pages and costs $3.99. Fans should keep an eye open for a photo B cover, as well as variant covers by Yoshi Yoshitani, and Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire.
Star Trek New Visions: An Unexpected Yesterday is the latest adventure written by John Byrne and featuring his photo-manipulation magic. In it, Kirk and his crew venture into the past, only to discover it is nothing like what their history books teach, with no trace of the devastation of World War III and the Eugenics Wars. What can have caused such a divergence? Find out in An Unexpected Yesterday, which runs 48 pages and is priced at $7.99.
For information on how to secure copies of the monthly Star Trek vs. Transformers comic book series, please contact your local comic shop or visit www.comicshoplocator.com to find a store near you. Also, the collected Star Trek vs. Transformers trade paperback is now available for pre-order via online booksellers and comic book specialty retailers. And keep an eye on StarTrek.com for additional details. -
Star Trek: Discovery is set to rock San Diego Comic-Con later this month with a season-two Hall H panel, a second annual gallery takeover of exclusive props and costumes, pedicabs inspired by the U.S.S. Discovery captain’s chair, merchandise exclusives and more. It will all happen over the course of SDCC, which will be held in and around the San Diego Convention Center from July 19-22.
Highlights will include:
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY PANEL
Thursday, July 20, 1:30PM
HALL H, San Diego Convention Center
Series stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Mary Wiseman, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, Mary Chieffo and Anson Mount will settle onto the dais, joined by executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin. Tig Notaro, who will guest star as Chief Engineer Reno during Discovery’s sophomore year, will moderate the panel. Together, they will look back at season one of the CBS All Access series and peer forward to hint at where the crew will go as they head into season two.
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY MIRROR UNIVERSE GALLERY TAKEOVER
Thursday, July 19 through Sunday, July 22
Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts Gallery
363 Fifth Avenue
CBS will deliver a fully immersive Star Trek: Discovery Mirror Universe experience at the Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts Gallery. The experience will feature a photo opportunity on Emperor Georgiou’s Throne and will showcase props and costumes directly from the series’ Terran Empire. The gallery will also house an official Star Trek Shop with Comic-Con exclusives. The takeover experience will be free to the public and not require a Comic-Con badge for entry.
And fans should be on the lookout for free, limited-edition Star Trek: Discovery Starfleet pins that will be distributed each day at the gallery.
Exhibit Hours:
Thursday 11:00am to 9:00pm
Friday 11:00am to 9:00pm
Saturday 11:00am to 9:00pm
Sunday 11:00am to 5:00pmPEDICAB PROMOTION
Thursday, July 19 through Sunday, July 22
All weekend long, CBS will offer free “intergalactic” rides throughout San Diego’s Gaslamp District in pedicabs inspired by the design of the U.S.S. Discovery’s Captain’s Chair. The pedicabs will feature the chair’s distinctive stitched black seats as well as video monitors built into its armrests, which will screen trailers for the highly anticipated second season. As an added touch, each vehicle will display an illuminated U.S.S. Discovery delta shield on the back.
Keep an eye on StarTrek.com for additional details about Star Trek: Discovery’s presence at SDCC, as well as for coverage of all the Discovery-related events.
Star Trek: Discovery's first season is available on CBS All Access in the U.S. and Space Channel in Canada. It's available on Netflix in the rest of the world.
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Who on Earth is most surprised by the fact that Rene Auberjonois directed eight episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? That’d be Auberjonois himself. DS9’s beloved Odo actor called the shots on “Prophet Motive,” “Family Business,” “ Hippocratic Oath,” “The Quickening,” “Let He Who Is Without Sin...,” “Ferengi Love Songs,” “Waltz” and “Strange Bedfellows.” StarTrek.com, as part of our ongoing Star Trek Directors’ School series of interviews, sat down with Auberjonois in late April, backstage during Destination Star Trek Germany in Dortmund. He graciously – and frankly -- looked back at his unexpected time in the director’s chair and touched on a couple of more-current matters as well.
Can we assume that you approached Rick Berman about directing?
Actually, no. Rick had said, “You know, you should think about directing.” I sort of went, “Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.” And then Jonathan Frakes was directing one of our episodes, and he said, “Are you going to direct?” I said, “I don't know. I'm not sure I should do that.” He said, “Are you crazy? If you're offered the chance, what you're basically getting is an education as a director that would cost you thousands and thousands of dollars to go to the best film school in this country. And it will just be given to you. They'll be paying you to do it.” So, I said to Rick, “OK, I'll do it, but I'm not ready to do it now.” I went through the process of going to script meetings and editing sessions and learning the ropes. I remember Rick passing me in the parking lot one night at the end of work, and he said, “Are you ready?” I said, “Oh, no, not yet.” He said, “Yeah you're ready.” And they threw me in. I think I did 8 episodes and...
Let’s break that down. Who were the directors you shadowed as part of attending the Star Trek Directors’ School?
Well, really all of them. There were no duds. They were all terrific, and all very different. It was good for me to not just have one that I shadowed. Once I knew I was going to direct, I was very focused on each time I worked with a director on how they did things. Some seemed to be able to just wing it and they would walk on the set and it was totally natural to them. Others came across very, very prepared. I’m sure they were all prepared, so I’m talking now about how they came across on the set. Either way, it all fell into place. Some, like David Livingston, were incredibly meticulous and did shot after shot and retake after retake. Others wanted far fewer takes. Those were good lessons to learn.
Your first episode was “Prophet Motive.” What do you recall of that experience?
I remember it vividly. Mostly, I remember being terrified. But I was really lucky because I got to work with Armin (Shimerman) and the Ferengi… Max (Grodenchik) and the others. These guys were pros and not given to not paying attention and not focusing, not concentrating and not being ready. So, I was very lucky in that sense. But I mostly remember being very scared. I know you probably want to discuss all eight episodes, and I’ll try to break a couple of them down, but – and this is sort of a thing that I say off the top of my head -- I think two of the episodes I was proud of. I thought I really hit the mark. Then, about four of them were acceptable. I kept the train on the tracks and delivered perfectly acceptable episodes. And I would say two of them were not up to snuff. I walked away from them at the end and thought, “I'm really out of my depth here.” And it wasn't that I got more and more confident as it went along. It didn't work that way. Some scripts I felt a natural affinity for as an actor, and even if I wasn’t performing much in them, I sort of knew the way it should feel and what it should look like. Sometimes I read the scripts and I just had no idea of how it was supposed to look. I'll tell you one of the episodes that I know I was proud of and I couldn't even give you the name of it, but it featured Sid (Alexander Siddig)…
“The Quickening.”
“The Quickening.” That one, even though it was a very difficult one because it was on location and we ran out of time and we had to really try to do everything we could to make it work, I felt that was the most filmic of the eight I directed. Someone told me that Sid mentioned it from the stage here the other day as an episode he liked. So, that’s nice… But I don’t know that I could go through them one by one, especially since – (laughs) – I’d prefer not to discuss the ones I didn’t feel were up to snuff.
Fair enough. So let’s come at it a different way. How surprised were you that you ended up doing eight episodes?
I was very surprised, actually. I'll be totally candid… I've never been comfortable as a director. I've always been happy to collaborate and throw in my ideas and to say, “What if we did this?” or “What if we did that?” That has often given producers the idea that it would be a good idea if I directed. But the truth is I never got really comfortable with it. Nearing the end, I remember people saying to me, “Well, when this is over are you going to go on and direct on other shows?” I said, “I cannot imagine going onto a set where I was not surrounded by family, by actors and crew and people who had my back all the time.” The concept of going into a show and trying to make it work… I just never pursued it after that. I was very grateful for the eight episodes of DS9 I got to do, but once I was done I was done.
Since we’re got you here now, let’s quickly talk about a couple of other things. You’re involved in What We Left Behind, the upcoming DS9 documentary. What was it like to sit down with Ira Steven Behr and really dig deep into your time on DS9?
Ira was fantastic. We did extensive interviews at my place and at conventions. I'm glad that Ira has been passionate about it and determined to make it because it's pretty easy for us to feel like the middle child who never got the attention we deserved. And that's all bulls--t. The fact is the show stands on its own and my sense is -- and we’ve talked about this a little bit, and I discussed it with Ira, too -- but the further away we get from it, I feel like the show has gotten more popular than it was when we were actually doing it week to week. Maybe that’s because now people can stream the show and they can watch the arc of it. It feels like an entire, complete novel, like a Russian novel. So, I'm really pleased that Ira and David (Zappone) have focused on it and been determined to do it. It'll be fun to see it, and I don't think it will be your ordinary documentary. I think it'll be a little quirky and a little bit strange, just like DS9.
You had a great line of dialogue in the DS9 episode “The Dogs of War.” It was… “Interesting, isn't it? The Federation claims to abhor such Section 31’s tactics. But when they need the dirty work done, they look the other way. It's a tidy little arrangement, wouldn't you say?” I’m not sure how aware of this you are, but Section 31 from DS9 will be carrying over to Discovery?
I wasn’t aware of that. I wish I could say I had anything to do with making up the line. I'm amazed I was able to memorize it. But hasn't that been sort of the nature of Star Trek, the idea that as different as each series might be – or how we think they’re different from the other versions -- basically there is a bloodline that has come from the very beginning, and they’re all somehow connected? I quite like that.
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Picture a buffet of Star Trek foods…. Gagh, Hasperat, Jumja Stick, Plomeek Soup, Rokeg Blood Pie and Zabu Stew. Now, which Trek cuisine would you want to try? That’s what we hungered to ask fans, and so we did in the latest StarTrek.com poll. Thousands of fans voted, and it was a pretty tight race. Check out the results:
Hasperat (27%)
Jumja Stick (24%)
Plomeek Soup (20%)
Gagh (13%)
Zabu Stew (9%)
Rokeg Blood Pie (6%)
Where among the results did YOUR choice of cuisine land?
Be sure to vote in this week's poll...
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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Direct from StarTrek.com, and in color, we bring you the Jupiter 8, brought to you by “Name the Winner,” premiering live from City Arena, tonight at 7PM Eastern.
And just what is the Jupiter 8, you ask?
Well, it’s the automobile with a performance that’s unexcelled in its field. Keep reading and you’ll see why you absolutely must have one… a real citizen would, or he’d die trying.
In Star Trek: The Original Series, the Jupiter 8, of course, was the futuristic car featured in the episode “Bread and Circuses.” If you recall, it was first seen on the main viewing screen in the teaser when Uhura intercepted a black and white television signal showing news footage from the planet 892-IV.
And then later in that episode, in Act I, we saw it advertised in color in the pages of the fictitious magazine, The Gallian.
But what was the Jupiter 8 in reality? Was it a real car or was it merely a hollow prop?
Well, it was – and still is – an amazing, award-winning, real automobile called the Reactor. It was built by Gene Winfield, a man who’s known for other significant contributions to TOS, and it’s become a famous star in its own right. Buckle up as we take a brief look at this car and its builder.
Gene WinfieldRobert Eugene Winfield – born in 1927 in the midwestern United States but raised in California – is a car customizer, painter and race car driver who noticed automobiles at a very early age. In fact, his first car purchase – a Model A Coupe – occurred when he was just 15 years old.
Winfield’s interest in customizing cars and building hot rods accelerated in high school and, following a year-long stint in the Navy after graduating (in 1945), he opened a car shop behind his mother’s house in California. It was then and there that Winfield began getting serious about professionally modifying and reshaping cars for both himself and his friends. Shortly afterwards, in about 1949, Winfield began racing his creations, but in 1953, following a tour in the U.S. Army, he married and abandoned that pursuit. At that point, he took up customizing full-time in a shop near Modesto, California.
In 1962, Winfield’s life took a significant turn when he was hired by Aluminum Model Toys (AMT) to design model car kits and full-scale promotional cars in Phoenix, Arizona. The importance of this to Winfield – and to Trek fans – is that his work there introduced him to the Hollywood scene and, as a result, he began making cars and other props for television and movies, including for TOS. He became quite successful at this endeavor, and other shows and movies in which his creations can be seen include The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, Trancers, The Last Starfighter, Star Man, Robocop, Back to the Future, and Blade Runner, to name a few. (A few more will be named shortly.)
Today, Winfield is still active and works from a car shop in Mojave, California.
Winfield’s Other TOS Contributions
As previously mentioned, Winfield made other contributions to TOS. In addition to his Reactor appearing in “Bread and Circuses,” he co-designed (along with art director Matt Jefferies and industrial designer Thomas Kellogg) the Galileo shuttlecraft, and he was also responsible for its fabrication. Additionally, he constructed the master tooling models for the D7-class Klingon ship that had been designed by Jefferies, one of which was featured in TOS. All of this work was done while Winfield worked at AMT.
The Jupiter 8, AKA, the Reactor
The Reactor (originally named the Autorama Special) was designed by Ben Delphia, for a client, and built by Winfield in 1965. Winfield based the car on a modified chassis from a 1956 Citroёn DS and a flat, 180 horsepower, turbocharged, air-cooled engine from a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa.
Although the Reactor was designed to be a show piece, Winfield also made sure it was engineered to be functional and useful. In addition to the previously mentioned features in its original design and build, others include:
• A hand-formed aluminum body that is painted metallic lime green with dark green shading around its edges
• Two seats
• Front-wheel drive
• Four manual speeds
• Three flush mount foot pedals for brakes, gas, and clutch
• Electrically-operable lights, doors, hood, and roof
• A hydro-pneumatic suspension system so that the car could lower and raise from 4 to 9.5-inches, the latter used for driving
• A swivel-mounted handgrip steering mechanism
• A weight of ca. 2000 pounds
• A 1965 price of $20,000 (allegedly)Winfield eventually purchased the Reactor and it survives today. It can be seen at car shows and other exhibitions around the country.
The Reactor's Other Roles
TOS was not the Reactor’s first gig. In fact, it was actually one of the last in that time period. Other notable television shows in the mid-1960’s where the Reactor appeared include:
• Bewitched, 1967, in the episode “Super Car” where it appeared as the Reactor Mach II
• Batman, 1968, in the episode “The Joke’s on Catwoman” where it played the Kitty Car (a dressed up “catmobile”)(We want to point out that, contrary to what’s been reported in some other sources, the actual Reactor vehicle did not appear in either the 1968 Mission: Impossible episode “The Freeze” or the 1967 The Flying Nun episode “Old Cars for New.”)
Additional Information about Gene Winfield and the Reactor:
To learn more about Gene Winfield and the Reactor, we recommend these links, especially the YouTube video:
https://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Gene_Winfield
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQJqLz11-loAnd that’s it – this is the conclusion of the article. Don’t forget that “Name the Winner” premieres live from City Arena tonight at 7PM Eastern. It should be a great show. Gladiator Claudius Marcus faces off with William B. Harrison, the last of the barbarians. You won’t want to miss it!
David Tilotta is a professor at North Carolina State University and can be contacted at david.tilotta@frontier.com. Curt McAloney—an accomplished graphic artist—resides in Minnesota and can be reached at curt@curtsmedia.com. Together, Curt and David work on startrekhistory.com. Their upcoming book, Star Trek: Lost Scenes (due out in August 2018 from Titan Books), will be filled with hundreds of carefully curated, never-before-seen color photos that they use to chronicle the making of the original series, reassemble deleted scenes left on the cutting-room floor, and showcase bloopers from the first pilot through the last episode.
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Star Trek Online, the free-to-play online roleplaying game that tells the future of the Star Trek universe, has been exploring the future of the characters of Deep Space Nine. In our newest expansion, Victory is Life, players team with 11 original DS9 cast members to defend the galaxy against the oncoming threat of the Hur’q.
Empersa, the homeworld of the Founders, is under attack by the Hur'q. This is our darkest hour - if Empersa falls, the Dominion will come to an end. If we fall, the Alpha Quadrant is next. It's time to make a stand. I hope you'll join in the fight. - Odo
During Tenebris Torquent, the previous episode in the Dominion story arc, you found the ancient homeworld of the Hur’q in the Gamma Quadrant. With your allies Kira, Garak, Bashir, and Odo, you uncovered many disturbing secrets about Admiral Tzen-Tarrak and the Founders.
Tensions between your allies and the leader of the Founders led to the execution of a desperate, last-ditch plan. Now, the homeworld of the Founders is under attack by the biggest Hur’q fleet the Alliance has seen. Will you help them?
Home will be available to all players who have completed Tenebris Torquent. (Romulan players must have selected a faction). Home will be a featured episode, with new rewards each week.
Star Trek Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game where players can pioneer their own destiny as Captain of a Federation starship, become a Klingon Warrior and champion the Empire through the far reaches of the galaxy, rebuild the Romulan legacy as the commander of a Romulan Republic Warbird, or serve the Founders in a new era as the perfect soldiers, the Jem’Hadar. In Star Trek Online, players have the opportunity to visit iconic locations from the popular Star Trek universe, reach out to unexplored star systems, and make contact with new alien species. Star Trek Online is currently available on PC, PlayStation4 and Xbox One. To download and play Star Trek Online today for free, visit www.playstartrekonline.com. -
StarTrek.com is saddened to report the passing of Sci-Fi and Star Trek legend Harlan Ellison. Ellison, who turned 84 just last month, died this morning, June 28, at his home in California, according to his wife, Susan. Ellison wrote countless books, novellas, short stories, scripts, think pieces and more, and he won every imaginable writing prize, including multiple Bram Stoker Awards, Hugo Awards, Writers Guild of America Awards, and more. His most-significant Star Trek contribution was, of course, his teleplay for the TOS episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever.”
Ellison and Star Trek went together like hellfire and holy water. Though he was an icon, a legend, an author whose name belongs on a sci-fi Mount Rushmore alongside Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Clarke, Le Guin and Dick, he knew he’d one day go to his grave as the man who wrote “The City on the Edge of Forever.” Only, Ellison didn’t quite write the episode. Sure, it was his idea and he tapped out a couple of drafts of it, but several other Trek figures – including Gene Roddenberry, Gene Coon and D.C. Fontana – rewrote it to that point that Ellison requested that his name be removed from the credits and replaced with a pseudonym: Cordwainer Bird. His request was denied. The whole scenario had been a sore point, as well as a blessing and a curse, for decades on end.
Back in 2012, StarTrek.com ran into Ellison at Walter Koenig’s Star Ceremony and asked Ellison if he might consider an interview. Ellison said he’d think about it, and we chose not to push our luck. Then, surprisingly, the phone rang. Ellison himself offered to do an interview… if we’d arrange for him to get a copy of his hysterical and potty-mouthed roast speech from the Koenig festivities. We made it happen and then decided to wait to talk to Ellison until the release of his then-latest book, 7 Against Chaos, a graphic novel which he collaborated on with Paul Chadwick and Ken Steacy. Sure enough, Ellison held up his end of the deal, spending the better part of a half-hour charming, cursing and curmudgeon-ing his way through a wide-ranging interview.
Asked if he’d made peace with his eternal Trek connection, Ellison, replied, “Yeah, well, I did once I wrote my book about “The City on the Edge of Forever” (The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay that Became the Classic Star Trek Episode) and published all the documents that proved what [Roddenberry] was saying I had done I had not done and that what I had done I had done. I won the Writers Guild Award with it. They’ve made all manner of tchotchkes and geegaws out of it. And the fact that Paramount and their heirs have made millions upon millions off me and I have made only thousands and thousands is something you learn to live with after, what?... 40 years. If you don’t learn to live with it, you are a petty person, and I live every day in hopes that I will be just a little bit smarter than I was the day before.”
Likewise, given that “The City on the Edge of Forever” is widely considered Trek’s finest hour and since the episode may have been the gateway to Ellison’s other works for thousands and thousands of people around the world, he conceded that it was a good thing to have on his resume and that he was ultimately glad that he did not manage to get his Cordwainer Bird pseudonym in the episode’s credits, as he’d originally demanded. “Sure, I’m pleased,” he said in 2012. “Look, I have done everything I can do within human bounds to make the distinction between what aired and what I wrote. I did the book and people know the difference. So, having created the Guardian and having created that episode is a high-water mark that I can be when I’m good.”
Considering his love-hate relationship with Star Trek, fans were shocked when, in 2014, Ellison appeared as a guest at Star Trek Las Vegas. He made the super-rare appearance in order to support IDW Publishing's event comic book series, Harlan Ellison's The City on the Edge of Forever, which was adapted by Scott Tipton and David Tipton and realized Ellison's full vision of the teleplay. During one of his stage sessions that weekend on the main stage, Ellison and old friend Walter Koenig arrived dancing to “Back in the U.S.S.R.” They lived just a couple of miles from each other and were dear friends for five decades, which was easy to see as they interacted on the stage that day. Ellison also delighted fans by signing autographs in the dealers’ room.
Ellison long dealt with ill health and suffered a stroke in October of 2014. Still, there was no quit in him, ever. Speaking to StarTrek.com in 2012, he promised, “I will continue doing this until the road comes to an end and my feet go over the edge of the abyss and I go into whatever niche in posterity they have for me. I made it into the Encyclopedia Britannica, right between Ralph Ellison and Ellis Island. That’s pretty good for a poor little Jew from Long Island.”
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Star Trek: Discovery won two Saturn Awards last night, as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films tapped Discovery as Best New Media Television Series and Sonequa Martin-Green as Best Actress on a Television Series. Discovery Executive Producer Heather Kadin, Producer Aaron Baiers, and cast members Mary Chieffo and Kenneth Mitchell accepted the awards.
Sonequa Martin-Green follows Kate Mulgrew as Star Trek's only recipients of a Saturn Award for best leading actor in a television series while Discovery joins Star Trek: The Next Generation (Best Genre Syndicated TV Series) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Best Genre Syndicated TV Series) as a Saturn Award best series winner.
Congratulations to Sonequa Martin-Green and the cast and crew of Star Trek: Discovery.
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“When you're on camera, even though you try to lose yourself in the character, you are aware that there is a camera there capturing every moment of it visually. With doing a voiceover job, you are worried about the sound of it, and you have to make all those visual colors come out with your sound.” -- Doug Jones
Many of the most memorable performances in Star Trek’s history have never been seen. Because of its unique storylines featuring characters in every shape and form – from cosmic clouds to sentient nanites – Star Trek has from its earliest days depended on talented actors to convey emotion and give realism to alien characters using only their voices. These voice actors bring alive some of Trek’s best allies and adversaries. Let’s explore several favorites.
More than a few TOS voice actors did double-duty in front of the camera as well as in the recording booth. Majel Barrett Roddenberry is a defining example. While her most-iconic roles were Number One and Christine Chapel on TOS and Lwaxana Troi on The Next Generation, she contributed many voiceover performances in nearly every incarnation. Her voice was that of Federation starships in TOS, The Animated Series, TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, in addition to the 2009 Star Trek Kelvin universe film. Two entertaining moments occur in the episodes “Manhunt” and “Cost of Living,” where Lwaxana speaks to the Enterprise D’s computer and Barrett Roddenberry performs with herself as her character tries to locate Riker in the former episode and start the holodeck in the latter episode. When Lwaxana commands the computer to “run it for us, dear,” there is a wink and a nod to those watching who get the inside joke.
In addition to her voice work as the computer, Barrett Roddenberry also played many roles on TAS. She voiced regular characters Christine Chapel and M’Ress, as well as Amanda Grayson in “Yesteryear” and the cosmic cloud from “One of Our Planets is Missing.”
TOS star James Doohan was a master of dialects, having performed in thousands of radio shows before and after beginning his TV and film career. Doohan brought those talents to screen both in the accent he added to the Scotty character, but also to the legion of roles he voiced for TOS and TAS. He was the powerful Sargon in “Return to Tomorrow,” the M-5 computer in “The Ultimate Computer,” the Oracle of the People from “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,” and the Melkotian warning buoy from “Spectre of the Gun.” Further, Doohan performed a dizzying array of TAS characters, and his talents are showcased by the fact that he – like Barrett Roddenberry – would sometimes play more than one character in the same episode. Jimmy was both Kaz and Kor in “The Time Trap” and Koloth and Korax in “More Troubles, More Tribbles.” He played the Guardian of Forever in the animated sequel “Yesteryear” and Robert April, the first Enterprise captain, in “The Counter-Clock Incident.”
Fun mentions must include Gene Roddenberry voicing the role of the Galley Chef in “Charlie X” and Leonard Nimoy (using the pseudo name “Frank Force”) performing the U.S.S. Excelsior computer voice in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Producer and writer Harve Bennett voices the flight recorder visual computer in the same film.
Also appearing in front of the camera for some roles and as a voice only in other episodes is Barbara Babcock. She played Mea 3 in “A Taste of Armageddon” and Philana in “Plato’s Stepchildren” on screen, but also contributed many TOS voiceovers. She was the Tholian Loskene, the Beta 5 computer and the shape-shifting cat Isis in “Assignment Earth,” the Zetarians of “The Lights of Zetar” and she played Trelane’s Mother in “The Squire of Gothos.”
Joining Babcock for “The Squire of Gothos” as Trelane’s Father was James Bartell “Bart” La Rue, a talented voice artist who played the original Guardian of Forever in “The City on the Edge of Forever.” La Rue would appear on screen in announcer roles, both as an Ekosian TV journalist in “Patterns of Force” and a TV commentator in “Bread and Circuses.” La Rue also voiced Provider 1 (“The Gamesters of Triskelion”) and Yarnek (“The Savage Curtain”).
Voice work continued to be an important aspect of Trek, especially as computer effects and modern technologies allowed for the creation of even more spectacular aliens and creatures. For example, the teeny Teenaxi Leader of Star Trek Beyond (given the name “Steve” and title “Grand Audarch of the Teenaxi People” in the comic Star Trek Boldly Go #10) was computer-generated, but his impressive vocalizations – which added to the initial misdirection that the Teenaxians were actually immense aliens – were provided by actor Shea Whigham. Fans of the movie series Fast & Furious may recognize Whigham as Agent Michael Stasiak, but Trek fans know him as the aggressive and questioning leader of the Teenaxi.
Impressive sounding voices added by talented voice artists are able to add a realism to characters even if they are not quite computer-generated perfect in their physicality. Case in point, the TNG character Armus would have been a costume with Metamucil and black printer’s ink poured all over it if not for the performances by the actors who brought the socio-pathetic embodiment of negativity to life. Inside the imaginative costume was actor Mart McChesney (who also played the similarly silhouetted Sheliak in “The Ensigns of Command”) and supplying the imposing, malevolent voice that had a hint of vulnerability to it was Ronald Gans. Fans of Lost in Space may know Gans as the Alien Leader in “Deadliest of the Species,” which was one of his on-camera acting roles.
Sometimes, however, there are no special effects. No costumes. No creatures. Sometimes it is only the voice. The superlative example of this kind of voice work is that supplied by Debra Wilson, who played the voice of Captain Lisa Cusak in DS9’s “The Sound of Her Voice.” Using only her voice, Wilson delivered one of Trek’s most-memorable guest-starring “appearances.” Best known for her many years on MADtv, Wilson actually played Uhura in several of the show’s comedy sketches and was a Trek fan. Bringing with her that Trek affection in combination with her comedic timing and voice artistry, Wilson paints a full picture of a character the other characters – and audience – only get to know from Wilson’s off-screen performance. DS9 was not Wilson's first Trek adventure, as she played a role in the "Klingon Encounter" interactive ride/movie program at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas a few months before.
As Miles O’Brien says about Lisa, “I never shook her hand and I never saw her face, but she made me laugh and she made me weep.” And that is the power of the voice.
Nicholas Jose S. Tenuto is a high school student and Star Trek fan. His poetry has been published in the Young American Poetry Digest. He is an award-winning photographer, and his “Tipple Ladders” image was an Illinois Parent-Teachers Association Reflections Art Competition State Qualifier. Tenuto is a recipient of the United States Presidential Award for Academic Excellence and a junior member of the Sons of the American Revolution. He's been attending Trek conventions since he was two weeks old, where he was held and given his bottle by actress BarBara Luna. His favorite character is the Doctor from Voyager. Tenuto is currently writing his first book, Lound, an original work of fiction. -
We’ll drink to this… James T. Kirk Straight Bourbon Whiskey is available today, courtesy of Silver Screen Bottling Company. In fact, the Kirk Whiskey will launch Silver Screen Bottling Company’s new line of Star Trek-branded spirits.
Captain Kirk is known for his bold spirit of adventure, and that’s precisely what the artisan, small-batch bourbon celebrates. Star Trek behind-the-scenes veterans Michael Okuda and Doug Drexler contributed to the design while the bourbon itself is selected from choice barrels aged between four and 12 years, with each small batch release exhibiting a depth and richness seen in only the finest examples of bourbon -- with notes of caramel, Asian 5 spice and pecan. Crafted with the highest respect for the whiskey and for the man that bears its name, James T. Kirk Straight Bourbon Whiskey is for the Star Trek fan and the serious bourbon fan alike.
The James T. Kirk Straight Bourbon Whiskey will be featured at San Diego Comic-Con, July 19-22, 2018 in San Diego, CA, with additional spirits set to make their debut there as well. In the meantime, go to www.jamestkirkbourbon.com now to purchase it.
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I love Starfleet uniforms.
I know, it’s shocking right?
With over 50 years of Star Trek, and a myriad of uniforms used throughout the Starfleet’s “history.” it’s hard to play favorites. I love ‘em all, from TOS to Discovery, there’s something to love about all of them… mostly. (I’m looking at you, Voyager Racing Uniform).
However, there’s one or two that are clear favorites of mine. As a kid during the TOS crew films, I can’t help but love the uniforms from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and that entire era. And, while the whole uniform suite is rad from the jacket to the bloused, bellbottomed pants, there was one piece that held my attention from the second it showed up on screen: The Starfleet Captain’s Bomber Jacket. The moment I saw Fleet Admiral Morrow wearing it in the Officer’s Club in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, I thought it was cool. When we saw Captain Scott wearing it a scene later, I wanted one of my own. And when Captain Kirk of the Enterprise-A finally wears one in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, it became an obsession. (And, hey, it is something I can wear over my green Starfleet uniform retro shirt!)
I’ve sketched it, patterned it, planned for it, even thought about what civilian outfits I could pair it with since June of 1989.
Fictionally, the Bomber Jacket is something special in and of itself. Just like the wraparound tunics Captain Kirk wore in TOS, we’ve only ever seen people who hold the rank of Captain (or above that) wearing the jacket. That places it in a special category of “Captains” uniforms that would eventually lead to Captain Picard’s own bomber jacket uniform a generation later (and another favorite uniform piece).
[You have a lot of those, John. - Ed.]
Over the years, I collected all kinds of data, pictures and even anecdotal stories about that uniform jacket, and I became convinced that there was someone else out there who perhaps liked that jacket as much as I did…Captain Kirk himself: William Shatner. Well, think about it. He wrote and directed Star Trek V. He made choices about what Captain Kirk should wear throughout that film, and he dressed himself with that Bomber Jacket in no less than three scenes. He even paired it with civilian clothes: a pair of Levi’s and a t-shirt from Yosemite National Park (“Go Climb a Rock”).
All I needed was confirmation.
About three years ago I found myself in Hall-H at San Diego Comic Con listening to William Shatner read excerpts from David Goodman’s fantastic book, The Autobiography of Captain James T. Kirk. It was amazing hearing Captain Kirk come to life one last time.
As the presentation wrapped up, they opened the floor for a Q&A session with Mr. Shatner and, as I sat there wearing our prototype of “his” Star Trek V Bomber Jacket, I realized that I had a question for Bill. So, I stood up, smoothed out my jacket and walked over to the microphone to talk to the man who played my favorite hero of all time, and ask him about… his clothes. As I got to the mic it was author David Goodman who noticed what I was wearing and said, “He’s got your jacket.”
“I love it,” Bill quipped. Obviously, this was a man of taste and sophistication.
My question for Bill: “Did Captain Kirk have a favorite uniform, and did you have a favorite costume?”
Perhaps to be expected from someone who wore the tightest of wraparound uniforms during TOS, Bill replied: “Anything with drape.”
I love William Shatner.
… and from that love, I’m proud to let you know that our Final Frontier Captain Kirk Bomber Jacket is nearly ready to make its debut.
We thoroughly researched every scrap of information we could find on the original jacket, and then selected an ultrasuede for it that would present just the look we wanted while allowing the end-wearer to customize it as they seem fit with Starfleet accouterments. This includes our replica of the Starfleet Officer’s Insignia Badge, which is only available with our uniform offerings (and not separately).
This jacket has been a very personal project for all of us, and it has taken years of research and development to create something truly special — a Starfleet jacket that could boldly go with either a whole uniform, or a t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.
John Cooley is a lifelong Star Trek fan and one of the Star Trek product designers at ANOVOS. -
When it comes to the unofficial Star Trek Directors’ School, Jonathan Frakes is the poster boy, as he served as its first student and set the bar for all Trek actors-turned-directors who followed him. He ultimately called the shots on 15 episodes of Trek, spanning The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Discovery, as well as the TNG features, First Contact and Insurrection. Frakes, who’ll be back behind the camera during Discovery’s upcoming second season, recently chatted with StarTrek.com about his Trek Directors’ School experience and subsequent work.
At what point did you realize you actually wanted to direct TNG?
I think it happened very early in the first season. I had done a lot of guest spots, and I always was attracted to, admired, hung around, and watched, and I was curious about the directing position. You can only take so many naps, which used to be one of the greatest parts of being an actor on a television series, was that there would actually be time. If you were working on a scene in the morning and another scene later in the day, you come in early, you get made up and dressed up, and go to work and do a scene. Then, literally, the first AD or somebody would say, "You know what? I'll see you in a few hours." That meant, "Oh my God, I can nap, or I can read, or I can do my emails."
Emails… in the 1980s?
Oh, yeah. Exactly. No emails, then. But the novelty of napping wore off. So, if I was between scenes, not working, I would take my fricking spacesuit off, hang out and watch. That was interesting to me. I've always been kind of a set brat. In the beginning of season two I voiced an interest to Rick (Berman) about directing, and I could feel his eyes roll. He and I were friends, in addition to being working companions, and he said, "Well you know what? You're gonna have to eventually train up. You don't know anything about editing." He comes from an editing background, from Big Blue Marble, when he was a producer and editor. So the major change in my life was to get the permission from, and endorsement of Berman and Bob... I can’t remember his last name.
Justman?
No. Justman was the one who taught me something I take with me to this day. Justman said, "Never show up at the set without a shot list." That was one of the great pieces of old-school advice he passed on. He was an advocate, right from the beginning, for some reason. His role on the show, it was very much as a keeper of the old, of the Roddenberry, you know? He was a Roddenberry advocate and representative, and he was a gentleman. He knew a lot about production, so that piece of advice I give to all the young directors that'll listen to me, too. Some of them don't do it. Some of them say "Oh, you know, I'm just gonna wing it." I think that's bulls--t.
Was the other Bob... Robert Lewin?
No, I was thinking about the editor Bob. I spent about 300 hours, maybe, in the editing room with different editors at different stages of the cut with them. I’d go in when they were looking at dailies, or when they were actually working on a director’s cut or spend time with Rick when he was doing the finals. That was eye-opening, especially for television because you've got the concept of “This is the minimum these guys need to put a scene together.” They got to have a master. They've got to have a beginning and ending, and everybody in the scene has to be covered, at least, in a two-shot. Anybody who speaks. If you have time, you get singles all around. And on our show, which was very traditional, very little moving camera, lots of closeups, lots of coverage. That was an important element of directing. Then Rick also allowed me, because I showed interest, into pre-production meetings and casting sessions. Never really anything with the intimate breaking of the story, which I later got to do later on Leverage and Librarians.
So, when I was at work I stayed on the set and observed the directors. When I was not working, I’d come into Paramount and spend time in either the editing room, or pre-production, or, my favorite part, the scoring. Dennis McCarthy was one of the only people still using a full orchestra, and I was a musician, so I loved that. That carried over into my experience with Jerry Goldsmith, which was one of the high points of making movies for me. One day, I wasn’t feeling it. I said to my wife, the beautiful and talented Genie Francis, “You know what? I don't feel like driving in today.” We were living in Tarzana then. She said, “You know what? The minute you start not showing up, it'll give Rick an opportunity to say you're really not interested.” So, I got my ass in the car and drove to Paramount.
You mean we all have Genie to thank for this?
You know, in a weird way we do. In a weird way we do. Also, without sounding overly humble, it was pretty clear that... First of all, as we know, I'm at least the second-best actor in my own house. On the show I was fine, but I was certainly not in the top three, if you were going to judge people's acting chops. And I don't know if I knew subconsciously or consciously that there’d be this typecasting. As Leonard Nimoy famously said, "It's better to be typecast than not to be cast at all." But there was a certain thing that happened after the show that you can see evidence of from The Original Series, from our series, Voyager, DS9, Enterprise. The exceptions were Bakula, and Patrick, and Bill and Colm, and Rene and Kate, maybe, to a certain point. Jeri Ryan. More of a handful people were not painted with the Star Trek brush, right? I don't know what you'd call that in your world, but there certainly is ... It was a double-edged sword.
Was the mystery Bob… Robert Lederman?
Yep. Yeah. Bob Lederman.
What directing elements early on were the hardest for you to grasp?
Deciding on the lens sizes was harder then because it was on film. When you shoot now on digital, you can literally change the size of a shot by, maybe, up to 50%. So, if your shot was too wide, you can make it tighter in post-production. If your shot was too wide in the '80s, you missed getting the right coverage. I love big closeups at the right time, so I learned to get enough coverage to put the scene together with some elegance. One of the things that Ed Brown, who was the DP in the first season, said, was, “Never repeat a shot in a scene, if you can help it, when you're cutting." That encouraged me to get more sizes. I love profiles, so I used to like to get profiles. It was the '50s and I was a big fan of the swingle, where you go back and forth between two actors, once to get their dialogue and once to get their reactions. I still use those techniques to get my coverage.
It's really important, especially in the beginning of your career, when you're trying to get these jobs, that you don't find yourself in the editing room, or the producer doesn't find himself in the editing room, after you've turned in your cut looking for shots that you don't have. “Well, where's the close up in this scene?” And the editors say, “Oh yeah, I didn't use it. It's right here.” That's what you want to have. What doesn’t play well is, “Where's the closeup in this scene?” "Oh, he didn't shoot one.”
Who were the directors you shadowed, and why?
I followed Cliff Bole. I followed Bob Scheerer. I followed Rick Kolbe, and I followed Corey Allen, but Corey wasn't with us much after the pilot. I remember when Corey was doing an episode. I guess it was one of our swing sets, and it literally was just caves. It was just gray walls, and he'd sit there on a folding chair and look at the wall, then he'd turn about 45 degrees and he'd look at another wall. I thought, "What the f--k is he looking at? Does he really see a difference between these walls?" I guess, in his heart of hearts, he did. But his passion for the craft was what I took most from Corey.
For your first episode, you got handed “The Offspring.” How helpful was it to you, A, that it was such a great script, and, B, that the episode in many ways, not entirely, was a two-hander?
Yes. Both those are absolutely, in my opinion, what allowed me to continue. I have been so lucky my whole life -- and blessed. On episodic television, you are at the whim of the episode. We did 26 a year. They're not all going to be home runs. There are going to be some real stinkers. When I got “The Offspring,” it was a scheduling situation, because I was light in the episode before it, so that I had time to prep. I had finally, I think by virtue of persistence, broken Rick down. This was the middle of season three, so I'd been shadowing for almost two years. Patiently, consistently. The upside of all that was I was over-prepared, and the company was, for the most part, very much in support of my getting a shot to do this. The sound department gave me a big megaphone that everybody had signed, wishing me luck. All the actors took the piss out of me on the set. But more to your question, it was a Data episode. I’d say your batting average with Data episodes is as high as with any character. The second big thing was the script by Rene Echevarria. It was a spec script, his first script that had been bought. He went on to incredible success. I worked with him again on Castle, where he was running the show. He became one of our writers. He became part of that great lineup -- Brannon, Ron, then we go Rene, Shankar, Coto -- who have continued to be big players in television.
So, this was Rene's first one, this was my first one, and this was a Data episode. There was the magic of Hallie Todd as Lal, who said to me the first day, "How should I do this?" I said, "If I were playing this, I would literally watch Brent be Data." You could see the light bulb go on, and that's exactly what she did. Her movements, gestures, body language, rhythms, I think, were influenced by Brent's choices he made as Data. It was specific to the fact that Data was building Lal in his own image. Whatever the android version is of that. Also, it was a Whoopi episode, and Whoopi always added a wonderful new element to our show. We loved having her. We loved being on the Ten Forward set. The episode had the right amount of drama and comedy. It was very emotional, just by virtue of being a family episode. And people always say that you felt more emotion around Data, who was the least human of any of us. I’ve always thought that was a great credit to Brent and a great credit to the writing.
So, the short answer is, both of the points of the points that you made are exactly why it went so well, and one of the reasons that I was able to continue. All the stars seemed to line up. Patrick was very supportive. I had a great guest cast. The camera, lighting and grip departments, I had really good working relationships with them. I remember Bob Sordal, the key grip at the time, who was about to retire, said, "You know, Frakes, you tell me what you want. We will build anything you want. Anything."
That's good will you’d created as an actor…
I believe that, yeah. I also believe I wasn't arrogant about it, and I certainly felt prepared. So, I think I definitely made the right decision to pursue directing. It was actually one of the best decisions I ever made, because I have another craft. I like it better, and I'm better at directing than acting.
You went on to direct seven more TNGs. At what point did you feel as at home on the set as a director as you did as an actor?
Right from the beginning.
Really?
Yep. Yeah. And I got other interesting stories. “Reunion” was the wonderful Worf-centric show with him and his kid. “The Drumhead,” I had Jean Simmons, who was there because she was an enormous Trekkie. “Cause and Effect,” I thought Braga was taking the piss out of me when he set the script down and each act was the same thing. That turned out to be like a directing test, or directing puzzle, or directing challenge, which I really enjoyed. I also did “Sub Rosa,” that wild, sort of off-cannon show with Gates and Duncan Regehr as Ronin, with the candle and ghost. I made a cardinal mistake on “The Drumhead” as a director, which I'll share with you.
Please do.
Michael Dorn had somewhere he had to go, so he whispered in my ear, "Is there any way that you could shoot me out of this scene? I said, "Sure,” because I thought I could get my coverage. It's an unwritten rule that you never let anybody who's in a scene go before you have moved on to the next scene, literally. Even if they're on the other side of the room, anything, you literally are not supposed to let any actors go until that scene is completed. And I, of course, thought, "I know how to do this. I'll shoot Dorn's coverage, and everything will be fine." And it's not like you had an actor who you could just call back in and say, "Come back in,” because this was Turtle Head, and that was 2 1/2 hours in makeup.
Dorn is long gone, and we're doing a piece of coverage, and where Dorn was standing it couldn't be clearer that we would see him. Not only see him, we'd see his face. So, the clever and talented Marvin Rush, who I'm now working with on The Orville, I told him the story. I said, "I screwed up. I let Dorn go." He said, "OK, I got this." We kicked it around, and he got the piece of coverage. I think it was of Jean, actually. Simmons was talking, and we managed to move the camera in a way where we pushed in, dropped down, got a piece of somebody in Dorn's costume, and then came back up on the next person. Then we pulled back out, and we thought we felt Dorn in the shot, but we never had to see his face. Marvin Rush bailed me out, and I've never released an actor until a scene was done since then.
In addition to TNG, you directed DS9, Voyager, First Contact, Insurrection and now Discovery, plus everything else you've done in your career. How grateful are you to Rick and TNG for starting it all for you?
Rick changed all of our lives when we started on TNG, for the better. Rick specifically changed my life by allowing me, and encouraging me, and supporting me as a director. When he chose me to do First Contact, which we really got to make together. Television, he was in the writer's room and I was on the set. But when we were doing First Contact and Insurrection together, it was the best of creative times because we have a similar sensibility and a similar sense of humor, and we like the same kind of music. I talk to him about it every time I see him. And sometimes when I feel something somewhere else, I'll send him a text and thank him. If it wasn't for him, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.
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We’re pretty sure that all the therapists out there would be interested in the results of our latest StarTrek.com poll, because they’re quite telling about people and their personalities… or how they perceive themselves. The question was: Which captain are you most like? Fans could select from Kirk, Picard, Archer, Sisko, Janeway and Lorca. Thousands of fans voted, and here’s the breakdown…
Picard (30%)
Janeway (23%)
Sisko (16%)
Archer (15%)
Kirk (14%)
Lorca (3%)
Where among the results did YOUR choice land?Be sure to vote in this week's poll...
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Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future was one of a classless utopia. It's startling when you consider that the show kicked off during the apex of the cold war, and such theories were synonymous with America's ideological foe, Communism. “People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things, “Captain Picard told a cryogenically frozen 20th-century human awakened aboard the Enterprise. “We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.”
But what works in the United Federation of Planets doesn't necessarily work for the rest of the Galaxy. Wherever there is a need for money you'll find those who are ready to cheat and steal. Putting aside our friends from Ferenginar, for whom outfoxing others to increase profit margins is an integral part of their culture, Star Trek has always had its share of gangsters, profiteers and a seamy space underworld.
Mudd
The first man who comes to mind, naturally, has a name that fits the bill: Mudd. Harcourt Fenton Mudd is a drug-pusher who treats women as chattel. Not nice! But he had a silver tongue and never came across as a dangerous, violent threat. As such, our first encounters in The Original Series positioned him almost as comic relief instead of a true villain. Captain Kirk even offered to be a character witness at his trial at the end of “Mudd's Women.” He was bad, but not that bad.
Mudd returned and attempted to steal the Enterprise in “I, Mudd,” and cooked up a love potion scheme in The Animated Series' “Mudd's Passion.” His recent return to Star Trek was in a new guise, played by Rainn Wilson a decade prior to his first Enterprise encounter on Discovery. The younger Mudd is a little more sinister, ready to sell out his cellmates in a Klingon brig. Plus, he keeps a large, gross bug (named Stuart) as a pet. He's ready to throw the U.S.S. Discovery into a dangerous time loop, but mostly for his own personal gain, not out of any interplanetary malfeasance.
Spocko
Star Trek's initial encounter with true organized crime was the episode “A Piece of the Action,” in which the planet Sigmia Iotia II has a culture developed from some Earth detritus left behind by a previous Federation visit. “The Book,” as the residents call it, is a text about Chicago Mobs of the Twenties, and the pinstripe suit and fedora-wearing gangsters made it their bible. In order to outsmart the Bosses and return the Enterprise to safety, Captain Kirk is forced to assume an Al Capone-esque identity and call his first officer “Spocko,” which, when I first saw this when I was nine years old, was hilarious. (OK, still is.)
Orions
The classic “green girl” of Star Trek lore, is, we now know, an “Orion Slave Girl,” but as the storytelling universe expanded (and some of Star Trek's sexist tropes evolved) we learned a great deal more about the Orion Syndicate. Despite the image of the dancing, subservient woman (the first images of which date to the first pilot “The Cage,”) Orion is actually a matriarchal society. It is the men who are slaves to the women, but few off-worlders know this. Orions are generally meant to be avoided, unless you need something and there is no legitimate place to turn. (This is the species that thought nothing to of putting a stop to the treaty at Babel to continue draining dilithium from Coridan.)
While Orions can be seen in everything from Enterprise to the films in the Kelvin Timeline, the most detailed Orion stories are found aboard the Omari-Ekon, the semi-autonomous ship run by merchant-prince (and borderline good guy) Ganz, in the marvelous Star Trek Vanguard book series.
In the season finale of Discovery, “Will You Take My Hand?”, seedy skid row of a near-Blade Runner-esque quality is seen all over the Orion outpost on the Klingon Homeworld. The Terran Emperor (also known as Mirror U. Georgiou) is quick to rent a male and female Orion for sexual purposes (and also to get information, in a roundabout James Bond kind of way) and Cadet Tilly runs afoul of Clint Howard as an Orion drug pusher. He offers her some huffs of volcanic vapor. (It is unknown if these specific lava rocks came from the Kri'stak mountains or elsewhere.) When Tilly rouses herself from her stupor, she finds the mini-ogre trying to steal her case which, unbeknownst to her, carries a bomb. He didn't know it; either; he just was looking for something, anything to sell on the black market.
But the best look at the Orion Syndicate doesn't even focus on Orions too much, just the trail of woe that criminal behavior leaves in its wake. “Honor Among Thieves” from Deep Space Nine's sixth season, is one of a number of heartbreaking O'Brien-centric stories. This time, he is sent to a planet, Farius Prime, with the goal of infiltrating the crime ring, befriending someone and ultimately betraying him. It's like Donnie Brasco in space! It's yet another example of Deep Space Nine refusing to deal in strict black and whites, and also features an adorable cat named Chester.
The criminal act is that I'm surely leaving out one of your favorite rogues. Is it Berlinghoff Rasmussen? Is it Cyrano Jones? Let me know your picks in the comments below.
Jordan Hoffman is the former host of Engage: The Official Star Trek Podcast. He is also a writer, critic and lapsed filmmaker living in New York City. His work can be seen on Film.com, ScreenCrush and Badass Digest. On his BLOG, Jordan has reviewed all 727 Trek episodes and films, most of the comics and some of the novels. -
This is the Kobayashi Maru... 19 periods out of Altair Six. We have struck a gravitic mine and have lost all power... our hull is penetrated and we have sustained many casualties.
Prepare to face the most infamous Starfleet test. The Kobayashi Maru, the “original no-win scenario,” comes to Star Trek Online as a limited-time challenge for your captains. How long can you hold out against ambushing enemy ships? Can you keep the Kobayashi Maru intact while facing down waves of hostile attackers and space hazards? What would Kirk do?
The Kobayashi Maru event will come in two forms: timed and untimed. In each case, you will fight to keep the freighter intact while destroying successive rounds of enemies who will become more and more dangerous as the simulation continues. The longer you last, the greater your rewards. Once everyone on your team is defeated at the same time – or when the timer runs out, if you’re playing the timed version – the mission ends. The mission also ends if the Kobayashi Maru is destroyed.
Participating in the Kobayashi Maru event will give you a choice of marks, and if you survive for a significant amount of time you’ll also earn bonus dilithium ore. Playing the Kobayashi Maru for at least three days out of the event’s duration will also unlock a special limited-time reward for you: The Universal Console Reiterative Structural Capacitor. This technology was designed with survivability in mind. While not a sure-fire way to avoid impending structural failure, this capacitor packs the reiterative properties to sustain oneself when under moderate to high damage bombardment. By harnessing the residual reverberations and energy echoes, this capacitor is able to feed them back into repair systems.
This process deluges one's own systems so much that it is required to spill out towards other allied vessels. However, this means that they are able to benefit from these repairing properties up to a moderate range as well. Due to the nature of this procedure, a single vessel is unable to withstand multiple capacitor processes running at one time.
The Kobayashi Maru event will run on Xbox One and Playstation 4 starting on June 21st at 8 AM PST through June 25th at 10 AM PST. The queue is available to all captains of level 50+.
Star Trek Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game where players can pioneer their own destiny as Captain of a Federation starship, become a Klingon Warrior and champion the Empire through the far reaches of the galaxy, rebuild the Romulan legacy as the commander of a Romulan Republic Warbird, or serve the Founders in a new era as the perfect soldiers, the Jem’Hadar. In Star Trek Online, players have the opportunity to visit iconic locations from the popular Star Trek universe, reach out to unexplored star systems, and make contact with new alien species. Star Trek Online is currently available on PC, PlayStation4 and Xbox One. To download and play Star Trek Online today for free, visit www.playstartrekonline.com. -
The addition of the U.S.S. Defiant let the writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine inject some action elements into the show and helped get the crew off the space station as they battled the Dominion. Fans got their first look at the Defiant in the third-season episode, “The Search, Part I,” but the show’s behind-the-scenes team spent a frenzied two weeks designing, erecting and detailing the ship. Michael Okuda recently posted several Defiant-centric photos and comments via his social media pages, and he kindly agreed to let StarTrek.com share them with our readers as part of our ongoing Star Trek Vault coverage. So, without further ado...
Dedicating Defiant. The DS9 art department celebrates the completion of the Starship Defiant bridge set with a champagne toast! We had good reason to celebrate: The Defiant bridge was a complicated set and we had just a couple of weeks to design and build everything. BTW, it's a good thing that set decorator Laura Richarz (partly hidden behind the bottle) was with us, otherwise we would have gotten in trouble for having beverages on the set!
In this photo, L-R Mike Okuda (with back to camera), Bill Hawkins (set designer), Jim Martin (illustrator; he designed the Defiant model), Denise Okuda, James Van Over (graphic artist), Randall McIlvain (art director), Scott Herbertson (set designer), Laura Richarz, Doug Drexler, and (I think) Rich Ratliff (special effects). Our fearless leader, Herman Zimmerman, was off at a meeting when we took this picture, so he couldn't join us.
Doug Drexler pours a (small) cup of bubbly for Jim Martin, as James Jim Van Over Sr waits his turn. Denise holds the Defiant's dedication plaque.
Doug Drexler and Jim Van Over Sr try out a placement for the Defiant's dedication plaque. Later, we added more backlit displays there, so the plaque ended up near the door.
Denise shows off the dedication plaque for the Starship Defiant. The ship's motto was: "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by," from poet John Masefield.
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John Eaves, over the past several decades, has had a major impact on the look of the Star Trek universe and played a pivotal role in shaping Gene Roddenberry’s vision. Eaves has worked as a production designer, illustrator and modelmaker across the franchise, from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier to Star Trek: Discovery, and he has been responsible for creating many of the props and ships, and helping develop the Federation design, from the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-E to the U.S.S. Discovery NCC-1031. And soon he will get his due, as, this fall, Titan Books will publish Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves
Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves is written by Joe Nazarro, a veteran author who most recently wrote Star Trek Beyond - the Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow. The new book represents the most-extensive collection of designs and illustrations created by Eaves for the Star Trek universe. Featuring fascinating pencil sketches and stunning concept art, this visually dynamic book will give fans a unique in-depth look into Eaves’ creative vision and the wealth of his remarkable work at the center of the venerable franchise.
Star Trek: The Art of John Eaves will be published on October 23, 2018. Keep an eye on StarTrek.com for additional details.
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The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "In the Hands of the Prophets" premiered on June 20, 1993... or 25 years ago today. The first-season finale further set in motion much of the intrigue surrounding the Bajorans, Prophets, wormhole, politics and fundamentalism that would steadily build to a head six seasons later with the series finale. To mark the episode's anniversary, StarTrek.com dips into its creation, production and legacy...
One Flew Over the Bajoran's Nest
Oscar-winning actress Louise Fletcher made the first of her 14 appearances as Vedek Winn in this episode. Speaking to StarTrek.com during a 2012 interview, she said that the character wanted one thing: "Power. She wanted power and she was ambitious. She was sort of a Margaret Thatcher in space, or, as I used to say, I was the Pope in space. People would say, 'Oh, you’re doing Star Trek. Who are you playing?' I’d say, 'Think the Pope in space, except she’s like an ancient Pope, from the old days when Popes were ruthless and powerful and exerted their powers and fought wars and did all kinds of naughty things.'”
Behr Necessities
There was only one DS9 season finale not written or co-written by Ira Stephen Behr, and this was it. Robert Hewitt Wolfe penned this one.
Skye's the Limit
Robin Christopher, the actress who played Neela -- the young Bajoran engineer on DS9 who secretly waited for the opportunity to assassinate Vedek Bariel -- is best known for her long stint as the character Skye Chandler Quartermaine on All My Children and also One Life to Live and General Hospital. She last appeared on GH in 2012, marking her final screen credit for the moment.
One of Our Favorite Lines
"In the Hands of the Prophets" is brimming with good dialogue, but one of our favorite lines came from Sisko, who said, "It is my philosophy that on this station there is room for all philosophies." If only it were that easy, right?
Deja Vu... All Over Again
Filming of monastery scenes with Bareil, according to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, took place at Fern Dell near Griffith Park. That locale had been utilized for the holodeck sequence in the TNG pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint."
The Roddenberry Connection
According to Memory Alpha, when Miles O'Brien is trying to decode the ANA routine, one of the sequences reads "GENE ROD," That's a reference to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Another sequence reads "NCC1 701," a reference to the U.S.S. Enterprise.
Another Favorite Line
Man, Vedek Winn was a piece of work, cold and calculating. Louise Fletcher no doubt loved delivering these great lines: "Now, I see that you want nothing less than to destroy us. You live without a soul, commander. You and your Federation exist in a universe of darkness, and you would drag us in there with you. But we will not go."
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It’ll be Star Trek vs Transformers this fall, with the Enterprise crew taking on the shape-changing robots of Cybertron. Yes, it’s true. IDW Publishing, in September, will release Star Trek vs. Transformers, a four-issue comic book crossover inspired by the continuities of two iconic cartoon shows: Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973) and The Transformers (1984).
John Barber and Mike Johnson, respectively two of the most- prolific Transformers and Star Trek comic book writers, have teamed with artist Philip Murphy and colorist Leonardo Ito to tell the story that fans have demanded for decades. The action is set at the edge of Klingon space, as the Enterprise answers a distress call and discovers a dilithium mine under siege by jets and helicopters of vintage 20th Century design. When a red, flat-nosed truck rolls in to save the day, the no-holds-barred Saturday morning mash-up truly begins.
Chase Marotz, IDW’s associate editor, said in a statement, “Star Trek vs. Transformers is finally giving us the chance to combine two of our most prominent licenses in a style that will delight both fans of the original animated series and new readers. David Mariotte and I are having a great time editing it and we can’t wait until the fans get to see it for themselves.”
For information on how to secure copies of the monthly Star Trek vs. Transformers comic book series, please contact your local comic shop or visit www.comicshoplocator.com to find a store near you. Also, the collected Star Trek vs. Transformers trade paperback is now available for pre-order via online booksellers and comic book specialty retailers. And keep an eye on StarTrek.com for additional details.
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Alex Kurtzman, veteran writer-producer and co-creator of Star Trek: Discovery, has inked a five-year extension of his production agreement with CBS Television Studios that calls for him to extend the Star Trek franchise for television, developing new series, mini-series and other content opportunities, including animation, as well as give CBS Television Studios exclusive rights to produce all television content created and developed by Kurtzman and his Secret Hideout production banner.
Set to join Kurtzman as part of the deal, which goes through 2023, are fellow Discovery producers Heather Kadin and Aaron Baiers. Kadin serves as president of Secret Hideout, while Baiers is senior vice president of television. Production on season two of Star Trek: Discovery is under way now, with Kurtzman behind the camera as director of the premiere episode.
Kurtzman and Secret Hideout, in addition to growing CBS’ Star Trek universe, will develop new, original series across the full spectrum of broadcast, cable and streaming platforms. As part of this process, Secret Hideout will expand its production operation, adding diverse voices and cultivating new creative talent to align with the company.
“Heather, Aaron and I are thrilled to continue Secret Hideout’s amazing partnership with CBS Television Studios,” said Alex Kurtzman. “Since our first collaboration with Hawaii Five-0 almost a decade ago, Les, David and the full team at CBS Studios have been our foremost collaborators and champions, treating each project with integrity, supporting the creative visions and working breathlessly to make each episode of every show the best it can be. CBS has also allowed us the great pleasure of reintroducing the world of Star Trek audiences new and old, and we are very excited to keep working alongside them to expand that world.”
Kurtzman is known as one of the most prolific creators in film and television, co-creating and launching some of the most successful franchises of the past two decades including multiple films in the Star Trek, Now You See Me and Transformers series. He has also written, directed or produced such projects as Instinct, Salvation and the recently completed run of Scorpion for CBS, as well as Mission Impossible III, The Proposal, Sleepy Hollow, Alias and Fringe.
Star Trek: Discovery's first season is available on CBS All Access in the U.S. and Space Channel in Canada. It's available on Netflix in the rest of the world. -
Zoe Saldana – who celebrates her birthday today -- is known as a driving force behind several mega-franchises, including Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar, as well as Star Trek. Saldana, in her three turns so far in the Trek universe, has crafted a unique take on Nyota Uhura, a role pioneered by the illustrious Nichelle Nichols. Given that fans probably knew less about Uhura than they did Star Trek's other original characters (not even a first name!) prior to the first Kelvin Timeline movie, Saldana has truly made the role her own by simultaneously infusing Uhura's persona with new traits and honoring Nichols' previous work. In celebration of Saldana's birthday today, let's take a look at some of her finest Uhura moments.
1. "No, I'm assigned to the Enterprise." {Star Trek (2009)}
.jpg "Star Trek 2009")
Despite her superb record as a cadet, Uhura's assignment to the U.S.S. Farragut prior to the fleet's departure for Vulcan clearly irritated the communications officer. Uhura confronted Spock about the matter, displaying confidence in her qualifications and a willingness to fight for a position she had earned. The validity of Uhura's argument and her unwavering stance left Spock with no choice but to assign her to the flagship U.S.S. Enterprise.
2. "Sir, I intercepted and translated the message myself." {Star Trek (2009)}
.jpg "Star Trek 2009")
Uhura vouched for her expertise as Kirk emphatically explained to Captain Pike that the Klingon transmission intercepted by Uhura, combined with the details of the U.S.S. Kelvin's destruction by Romulans and reports of a lightning storm in space near Vulcan, strongly indicated that the Federation fleet was warping into a trap. Spock quickly acknowledged Kirk's logic and Uhura's aptitude, leading Pike to order an early exit from warp and saving the ship. The teamwork between the three young officers foreshadowed their trusting bond that would form in the coming years.
3. "Good thing you don't care about dying." (Star Trek Into Darkness)
.jpg "Star Trek Into Darkness")
Uhura's frustration with Spock's actions on Nibiru came to a head during their daring excursion to nab Benedict Cumberbatch's character, John Harrison (a.k.a. Khan Noonien Singh) from Qo'noS. Uhura's inclination to stand up to Spock evoked her fearless nature and demonstrated a flair for getting Spock to express his true feelings. The verbal skirmish led to a rare emotional moment for Spock, as the science officer articulated the esteem in which he held Uhura.
4. "You brought me here because I speak Klingon... let me speak Klingon." (Star Trek Into Darkness)
.jpg "Star Trek Into Darkness")
Uhura's words professed a confidence in her own work and a readiness to volunteer for a perilous confrontation with a squad of heavily armed Klingons. Valuing their mission and her crew's safety above all, Uhura put herself in harm's way to diffuse the situation. While her plea for peace fell on deaf ears, the communications officer went above and beyond to try and protect her friends.
5. "Commander, I have that transmission as requested." (Star Trek Into Darkness)
.jpg "Star Trek Into Darkness")
Saldana's Uhura exhibited numerous skills during her tenure in Starfleet, but her post as the ship's communications officer also came in handy. By restoring the Enterprise's comm systems and reaching Spock Prime on New Vulcan, Uhura permitted her own Spock to gather advice on how to defeat Khan. The interaction between the two Spocks led to the ingenious ruse of beaming armed torpedoes rather than ones containing cryotubes to Khan on the U.S.S. Vengeance.
6. "Can you beam someone down?" (Star Trek Into Darkness)
.jpg "Star Trek Into Darkness")
Unable to beam Khan back to the Enterprise, Uhura once more chose to place an additional burden on her own shoulders. While informing Spock that the crew needed Khan alive served as Uhura's primary goal, her appearance with a phaser distracted Khan enough to give Spock the upper hand in the brawl. Uhura's bravery prevented Spock from killing Khan, thus supplying Dr. McCoy with enough “super blood” to resurrect Kirk.
7. "He would've done the same." (Star Trek Beyond)
.jpg "Star Trek Beyond")
As the Enterprise slowly perished, Uhura took it upon herself to assist Captain Kirk in his endeavor to separate the ship's saucer and restore impulse power. After single-handedly dispatching two Swarm Soldiers, the communications officer risked her life and successfully completed her mission. In the process, Uhura sacrificed her own freedom and saved Kirk from Krall's grasp, as the separation sequence left her trapped with their alien foe in the disconnected engineering section. The sequence of events once again demonstrated Uhura's courageous and resourceful nature.
8. "Spock, what are you doing here?" (Star Trek Beyond)
.jpg "Star Trek Beyond")
Although Spock set out with Kirk, McCoy, and Jaylah on a mission to free Uhura and the Enterprise survivors from Krall's compound, Saldana's Uhura ended up rescuing the wounded science officer from a Swarm Soldier's deadly wrath. Spock sardonically observed that he had intended to come to Uhura's aid, yet his tone offered a hint of resignation at his former paramour's knack for resolving situations on her own terms.
9. "It's him." (Star Trek Beyond)
.jpg "Star Trek Beyond")
During the search for Krall aboard the scuttled U.S.S. Franklin, Uhura keenly noticed a recording of the vessel's original crew on a viewing screen. As a master of languages and someone who dealt with Krall face-to-face on Altamid, Uhura observed the similarities between words spoken by Krall and the Franklin's Captain Balthazar Edison, ultimately realizing that the two people were one and the same. This crucial revelation provided insight into Krall's intentions and a general description of his current appearance, allowing Kirk to prevent Edison from decimating Starbase Yorktown's population.
10. "You old romantic." (Star Trek Beyond)
.jpg "Star Trek Beyond")
Offered in response to Spock's awkward attempt at displaying his fondness for Uhura's company, this comment conveyed the amusement Uhura felt and her appreciation for Spock's sentiment. The exchange indicated their relationship's revival and a renewed effort by Spock to make their pairing a focal point in his life.
Jay Stobie is a freelance science fiction writer who contributes articles to the official Star Trek website and Star Trek Magazine. He can be found on Twitter at @CaptStobie and on Instagram at @JayStobie.
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What do Jonathan Frakes, Avery Brooks, Roxann Dawson, Rene Auberjonois, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Andrew Robinson, Robert Duncan McNeill, Tim Russ and Robert Picardo all have in common? Not only did they star/guest star on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and/or Enterprise, but they directed episodes of Trek as well. To do so, each of them – beginning with Frakes – had to matriculate through Trek’s so-called “Directors’ School” and earn their shot. And the headmaster, so to speak, was Rick Berman, executive producer of TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Berman established the unofficial program in order to prep his Trek actors to step behind the camera.
The result was some top-notch Trek hours, not to mention the development of several actors-turned-directors who are now among Hollywood’s most firmly established go-to directors, notably Frakes, Dawson, Burton and McNeill, while Russ has directed numerous shorts and indie features. Starting today, StarTrek.com will shine a spotlight on the “Directors’ School,” chatting first with Berman and, in coming weeks, several of the school’s graduates.
How, when, and why did the so-called directors’ school come about?
Jonathan Frakes, who I was very close to, personally and professionally, was very interested in directing. This was around season two. My theory on that was it was a slippery slope. There were a lot of potential pitfalls. What do you do if their episode is mediocre? On the other hand, actors were extremely good candidates for episodic directing simply because they lived their lives on the sets. They saw everything that went on, technically. Being actors, they knew everything that was going on dramatically, they spoke actor-ese and they’d see the technical elements of production and camera work going on. They seemed, in a sense, better candidates for potential directors than technical people. If a cameraman or an assistant director wanted to direct – and there are exceptions to this rule -- they know the technical elements, but they don't speak the actor-ese. They don't understand how, necessarily, to deal with actors and to deal with character work. It's much easier for an actor who's directing to talk to the director of photography or sound man or production designer, and get information of a technical nature than it is for an assistant director to have somebody to discuss, “How do I talk to an actor about his performance?” So, actors always seemed to me to be decent candidates for directing.
However, what I said to Jonathan was, "You need to spend some time shadowing other directors. You need to spend time going through the whole process, going through the script, going through pre-production and all the prep a director does, spending time with directors on the stage, spending time with the director as he's prepping each day's work and spending time with the director in editing." This was not always easy, because these actors were busy. They didn't have time to necessarily do that because they were working. So, they had to find time. And my feeling was if they really had a passion to do this, they’d make it their business to find time. At some point, whether it was Jonathan or me or somebody else, it became known as "going to school" prior to getting a directing assignment. Jonathan spent numerous episodes, when he was light in an episode, going to school. Even when he was busy and had a full load of pages on a specific episode, he’d find time, whether it was lunch hours, before work, after work, scenes he wasn't doing, to do all the things I mentioned before.
Who were some of the directors you had them shadow, and why those directors? Or was it just whoever was working?
It was whoever was working, but obviously it’d be better for them to shadow directors who were strong and directors who’d be nurturing. There would be some directors who wouldn't give a damn about some actor shadowing them around and then there’d be others who’d love to help them and to talk them through it. Corey Allen and numerous other directors in the early days I knew well enough to know that they’d be good to these actors who were shadowing them, and especially, specifically, Jonathan because he was the first. I encouraged Jonathan to then spend as much time with that director as possible. After multiple episodes of school, of working with directors on script work and prep and shooting and cutting, I, in talking to the directors that were being shadowed and in talking to people on the stage, talking to the director of photography, I got a feeling that Jonathan understood and was prepared, and we gave him his first shot. And he hit it out of the ballpark. He did a terrific job. That led to, obviously, additional assignments. You turn on television nowadays and you see so often that actors are directing. But it's difficult when you're acting and you have to be in scenes and you have to be prepping for scenes and be in makeup and in wardrobe and all that, and also be directing. But we’d try to find a way to make that work.
It felt like a number of your actors-turned-directors got great scripts to work with. How did you decide which script an actor received? Was that purely a function of where they fell in line in the director rotation, or was it random?
There really wasn’t a director rotation. The scripts the actors got, that was just luck of the draw.
Did the process you described evolve over the years from series to series, or was the template that you established with Jonathan pretty much what carried through to the very end?
It pretty much is what carried through to the very end. You have to remember, these actors spent hundreds of days a year on the set watching cameramen, watching lighting, watching how shots were set up, watching how setups were done and how many shots it would take to get a scene done, and at what point it would be too much and they would fall behind in terms of time. They would learn and they would see it and they were constantly observing because that's what they lived on the set. But they had to learn a lot more, and the process of what they had to learn was pretty basic. I don't think that that process changed from year to year or from show to show.
You had 12 actors who became directors. In general, how pleased were you with their efforts?
I was happy to give everyone the opportunity. Let me tell you that Jonathan was the first and, I think, probably the most successful in terms of Star Trek. He went on to direct two of our movies and then to direct other movies and to do a lot of directing in other television series. After Jonathan, the highlights that come to mind -- and it's years later -- would be LeVar Burton and Robbie Duncan McNeill and Roxann Dawson, who did remarkable jobs directing and who have all gone on to careers as directors on numerous television series. And because we had different series, these actors we're talking about, the four that I've just mentioned, as well as a number of the others, would get assignments on future Star Trek shows that we did. Jonathan, of course, is directing Discovery now.
How much pride do you take in having given them their breaks as directors? You've got to feel good -- and they've got to be appreciative of you.
Oh, I think they’re all appreciative, which makes me feel terrific. In the case of Jonathan, who's still a very close friend, I feel very proud that I put him through his paces and that he ended up setting an example, because every future actor/director knew they had to do what Jonathan had done and they all knew what Jonathan went through. In the case of Roxann, Robbie, LeVar and some of the others, it's great to be able to give somebody an opportunity to do something that bolsters their career and gives them a whole new vocation. Acting is a tentative life, and to have a second career is helpful and creative and financially beneficial. So, it makes me feel terrific, and it does that in the same way that there are some actors that we gave a first job to that have become successful. People like Dwayne Johnson, whose first acting job I think was on Voyager, and he's a world-renowned movie star now. You could say the same about Tom Hardy, who never had a role bigger than a couple of lines prior to getting his role in Nemesis. Now, he’s a world-class movie star. So, that's a good feeling, too. There's luck involved in all that, but when you give somebody a first shot and then they manage to take advantage of it and let their talent soar and allow them to build a career, it feels good.
Keep an eye on StarTrek.com for our next "Directors' School" feature, an interview with Jonathan Frakes.
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Which quadrant would be most interesting to explore? That's the question StarTrek.com posed for our latest weekly polls. And the options from which fans could choose were, of course, Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Gamma Quadrant and Delta Quadrant. Thousands of fans voted, and here are the results:
Delta Quadrant (34%)
Gamma Quadrant (26%)
Alpha Quadrant (24%)
Beta Quadrant (16%)
Where among the results did YOUR quadrant of choice land?
Be sure to vote in this week's poll...
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It's Father's Day, when dads across the galaxy enjoy a special day of lie-ins, breakfasts in bed and general pampering. Star Trek has featured a number of memorable fathers… who raise their children in many different ways. Over the five decades of Star Trek, we've seen biological fathers, creators who are de facto dads, estranged fathers and foster fathers. To celebrate the big day here's a look at eight Star Trek father figures.
Ben Sisko
Arguably the most inspirational father figure in all of Star Trek. After the loss of his wife Jennifer at the Battle of Wolf 359, Benjamin raised his young son Jake alone, steering him through the devastating loss of his mother on a journey that would take father and son to Utopia Planitia shipyards, where Sisko would work on the U.S.S Defiant and on to Deep Space Nine, and Benjamin's first command. The seven years together on the station brought them closer together. As Jake grew into adolescence and young adulthood, so the elder Sisko also grew, from commander to captain to emissary of the Bajoran people, a destiny that would eventually see father and son torn apart as Benjamin sacrificed himself to save Bajor, leaving his son to carry on in the world with the lessons his father imparted.
George Kirk
As far as legacies to live up to go, the Kelvin timeline version of James Kirk had a rock to climb, born as he was in the moments before the death of his father. George Kirk made a decision that not only saved the 800 souls of the U.S.S. Kelvin, but served as inspiration for his son James, who would battle through difficult times to join Starfleet and ultimately exceed his father’s achievements countless times. In 12 minutes, George made decisions far beyond his rank and years, defending the crew of the Kelvin while under fire from the Narada, disabling its weapons and setting the Kelvin on a collision course that severely crippled the massive Romulan vessel. Dared by Captain Pike to join Starfleet, James Tiberius (named James for his maternal grandfather and Tiberius for his paternal grandfather) engaged his tenacity and daring spirit to save billions of lives.
Sarek
Known throughout the galaxy by factions of every stripe as a skilled and impartial ambassador, you could be forgiven for believing that the Vulcan Sarek was better suited to the trials of diplomacy than the tribulations of fatherhood, and yet – despite the inevitable ups and downs of life - he was father to three children who would go on to have lives of deep significance. His firstborn Sybok was the son of Sarek’s first wife, a Vulcan princess who died shortly after Sybok’s birth. His second son was Spock, a Human/Vulcan hybrid who would become one of the most decorated Starfleet officers ever and a proponent for Vulcan/Romulan reunification. His third child was not of his flesh, but was certainly of his spirit. Michael Burnham, the human who shared Sarek’s stubborn streak and used it to her advantage during the U.S.S. Discovery’s mission in the Mirror Universe.
Data
While other fathers may have physically created their progeny, there are few who could claim to have been so personally affected by their offspring’s journey as Lt. Commander Data. Keen to push the boundaries of his programming, and keenly aware of the biological process of reproduction, Data took it upon himself to create his own next generation in the form of Lal. Initially created as part of his own exploration of human emotions and to recreate the work of his own creator, Noonien Soong, Data soon came to realize that there were far more elements to raising a daughter. Regrettably, a sequence of events put stress on Lal and her neural net failed. Determined for her loss to not be in vain, Data assimilated her memories into his own neural net.
Miles O'Brien
Star Trek's everyman, Miles O'Brien reveled in the challenges of fatherhood. He served as transporter chief of the U.S.S. Enterprise before transferring to DS9, where he was chief of operations, a role that was the perfect fit for Starfleet's Mister Fix-it. Despite his passion for the job and the long hours it brought with it, O'Brien found love with botanist Keiko Ishikawa, marrying on the Enterprise and later taking his young family -- which now included daughter Molly -- to DS9, where they'd take root. A devoted father, Miles managed to find that all-elusive balance between work and home life to give Molly and their son Kirayoshi the stable home they needed - even when unbelievable events happened... such as Molly falling into a time portal and returning 10 years older - and weathering his occasional spats with the fiery Keiko.
Sergey Rozhenko
Few could have ever guessed that the first Klingon in Starfleet and a man dedicated to loyalty, honor and the delicate balance between cultures could have been raised on a small farming world to two most unlikely parents, Sergey and Helena Rozhenko. However, once we met them it made all the sense in the world. A former chief petty officer, Sergey was a warp core specialist aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid when he embarked on an away mission that resulted in the discovery of a young Klingon, Worf. Sergey and Helena fought to adopt the young boy, moving to Gault with their son Nikolai, who Worf would see as a brother. Firm, fair and wise to a fault, Sergey gave Worf the stable, loving background that formed the bedrock of his ever-evolving understanding of humans. Without this barrel-chested Starfleet officer in his corner, Worf may never had the courage to brave the storm and join Starfleet.
James T. Kirk
The Prime timeline version of James T. Kirk had a distinctly different destiny to that of his Kelvin counterpart. Being further down his timeline than his younger mirror image, fatherhood raised its head. His arrival with Spock and McCoy at the research station Regula-1 brought mystery, death and the beginning of a clash with an old enemy that would both take a brother in Spock and give him a son he never knew he had in the form of David Marcus. Ready for action, but not the great adventure of fatherhood, Kirk struggled with his new role. That future was wrenched from him just weeks later when David was murdered by the order of Klingon Commander Kruge on the Genesis planet. Ironic, that Genesis should give and take the life of his son and take and give the life of his “brother,” Spock.
Admiral Owen Paris
An admiral in Starfleet, Owen Paris was highly regarded throughout the Federation for his strength of conviction and strict adherence to the Prime Directive, the keystone of the UFP. His son Thomas was also well known… for his insubordination and for his difficult path through Starfleet Academy and eventual role in the Maquis, which ultimately led to a penal colony in New Zealand. With Janeway taking a chance on Tom and Voyager stranded in the far-distant Delta Quadrant, Admiral Paris oversaw the Pathfinder project, designed to make contact with Voyager and guide them home. Despite his disappointment with Tom, the increased contact with Voyager via the Midas Array helped melt the ice that had frozen between father and son, completing a personal journey just as Voyager ended its own galaxy-spanning trip.
So, happy Father’s Day to Trek’s dads… and to all the dads out there.
Mark Newbold has been an avid Trek fan since the 1970's, when TOS was shown on UK TV, but it was the original cast movie series and TNG era that sealed the deal. Mark is a writer for Star Trek The Official Magazine, is editor-in-Chief of Star Trek: The Neutral Zone and was a stage host at Destination Star Trek Germany in 2018. At heart he's a Niner. Follow him on Twitter.
Inside the Klingon D7 Class Battle Cruiser
in Star Trek
Posted
The Klingon D7 Class Battle Cruiser was the pinnacle of combat warships in the 23rd Century. The mainstay of the Imperial Klingon Fleet, the D7 inspired fear and capitulation throughout the quadrant. To go up against a fleet of D7 warships was to invite doom…
Cruiser Cutaway
At 228 meters long and a crew of around 430, it was not the largest ship of the time. However, this versatile vessel could take on many roles in addition to being a combat ship. It was quick and maneuverable with its S-2 Graf Unit propulsion system, similar to the Federation Starfleet’s Warp Drive. On several encounters with the U.S.S. Enterprise in the 2260’s, the D7 was used as a scout ship, able to slip in and out of the Enterprise’s sensor range with ease.
The D7 was heavily armed, featuring phasers, photon torpedos, and two nacelle mounted disruptor cannons. The cannons could fire extremely powerful disruptor bolts utilizing power directly from the ships engines. Their placement on the outer wings gave them a great range and wide field of fire. In concert with the forward photon torpedo launcher, the ship could produce a devastating frontal assault on its target.
A Conflict of Interests
The Enterprise and the Federation Fleet were about to find out how long they could survive against an armada of D7 cruisers in 2267 while in conflict over the planet Organia. The Klingon forces and their leader, Commander Kor, had landed on the planet, seizing control of an oddly docile group of people. Organia was a strategically perfect planet and the Klingons and Federation wanted it for themselves.
As both fleets gathered to what what would have been the most destructive and costly war the quadrant had ever seen, the Organians had other plans. Through their non-corporeal powers, they seized both fleets and halted the conflict. Reluctant at first, both parties eventually agreed to cease hostilities. The full test of the D7 versus the Federation Constitution-Class in all out warfare was tabled, for now… (TOS: “Errand of Mercy”)
Klingons and Romulans Conspiring Together…
Another disturbing event for the Federation happened in 2268 when it was discovered that the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire had made an alliance. A few exchanges including the Romulans adding the far superior D7 to their fleet and the Klingons receiving the Romulan cloaking technology, rendering ships invisible to eyes and sensors, increased the Federation’s anxiety.
The Federation concocted a secret plan to capture one of the Romulan cloaking devices, now installed on the Romulan D7 cruisers brandishing the glorious Romulan Bird of Prey art. The Enterprise was once again sent into danger to acquire one of these precious devices. After Kirk’s plan had succeeded, the Enterprise warped as fast as it could back to the neutral zone as the Romulans gave chase. Just entering weapons range of the powerful disruptor cannons, the Enterprise suddenly disappeared. Chief Engineering Officer Montgomery Scott had been able to integrate the cloaking device into their systems and activate it just in time. The Romulan ship could have dealt significant damage to the Enterprise on the first volley of weapons, but they were too late. (TOS: “The Enterprise Incident”)
Klingons and Starfleet Working Together
If the cloaking device could be integrated into the Enterprise’s systems, then perhaps these two great ships were not as dissimilar as one might think. In 2269, the Enterprise and the I.K.S. Klothos, under the command of Kor, were able to combine their dwindling power systems in order to escape a pocket of null space in which they were trapped. The ships docked together to reach the speed of Warp 8 needed to break free of the null space pocket. (TAS: “The Time Trap”)
“Kirk...Tribbles?”
Kor was not the only captain of one of these mighty ships. Two other Dahar Masters (the title of a legendary Klingon warrior) would also command the D7, Kang and Koloth.
Captain Koloth would encounter the Enterprise several times in the 2260’s. Two of note involved Sherman’s Planet, a world the Federation was attempting to develop. Koloth would meet Kirk at Deep Space Station K-7 with the I.K.S. Gr’oth. Koloth and a Klingon spy, Arne Darvin attempted to poison the grain bound for Sherman’s Planet, but were thwarted by one of the most hated, reviled, loathed villains of the Klingon Empire, Tribbles. (TOS: “The Trouble With Tribbles”)
Tribbles would again play a role in foiling the plans of Captain Koloth. In 2269, the empire had developed a new starship projected stasis weapon which could render opposing ships completely inert. Koloth, now in command of the I.K.S. Devisor, proceeded to test the weapon against the Enterprise whilst it was distracted escorting two robot grain ships and after giving chase to the privateer, Cyrano Jones. Jones had previously been the cause and solution to the previous problems on K-7. The projected stasis weapon was a great idea in theory, but in practice, it also immobilized the ship projecting the beam. All the power required to use it drained the ship itself. (TAS: “More Tribbles, More Troubles”)
Legacy
The D7 would eventually be refit into the venerable K’Tinga Class. The K’Tinga would continue on well into the next century, even taking part in the Dominion War. The legacy of the D7 would inspire many Klingon ship designs in the years to come, most all featuring a long neck with the command center at the end, wings with disruptor cannons, and a generally sleek, aggressive look.
Behind the Scenes
The D7 was designed by art director Matt Jefferies, designer of the original U.S.S. Enterprise. He “had to design a ship that would be instantly recognizable as an enemy ship, especially for a flash cut. There had to be no way it could be mistaken for our guys. It had to look threatening, even vicious.” The studio filming miniature was built by AMT, who would later produce a model kit.” (Matt Jefferies, Star Trek Sketchbook, 1997)
Ian Kisluk is an avidStar Trek fan and collector. Trek model and prop building as well as stage acting are his most prolific passions. Follow him @Starchwreck on Twitter and check out Starchwreck Props and Models on Facebook.
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