Fortieth Anniversary Event

[Nate the Great]

If someone else has already brought this up, I'm sorry for the repetition.

So are we going to have a party of some sort for the big event? I realize that the fortieth isn't quite as happy as anniversaries in the past. I mean, twenty was NextGen, twenty-five was STVI, thirty was STVIII and Voyager, thirty-five was... um, Enterprise?

I know that we can't expect a slew of new fivers or anything, but maybe we could use this thread to relate some of our most meaningful Trek memories, share the lamest Trek jokes we know (for some real groaners go over to Nitcentral), or whatever.

I'll start off with a Jim Wright quote from Delta Blues regarding a classic Janeway line. This may not be accurate word-for-word, but you get the gist:

Janeway: It's not exactly Shakespeare, but it gets the point across.
Jim Wright: I don't know about you, but this sent me into a ten-minute guffaw. This could be the Unofficial Star Trek Mission Statement.

[Zeke]

Okay, who else read the title and thought "How can the site be 40 years old already?"

Seriously, I'm glad you reminded me of this, because now I have a great idea for a TJI about it. The thread is a good idea too.

(Btw, Voyager had been on for a while by the 30th anniversary. Both Trek shows had celebratory episodes -- VOY did "Flashback" and DS9 "Trials and Tribble-ations." Similarly, TNG celebrated the 25th anniversary with "Unification." 35th was indeed ENT.)

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Okay, who else read the title and thought "How can the site be 40 years old already?"

Heh. I never quite formed that question, but saw the thread title on the main page and had a "Wha--... oh, right" moment.

[Nate the Great]

I was just going with round numbers to mark off the five-year increments. It's not like I'm ambitious enough to go over to startrek.com for research or anything.

Re: Flashback. Any thoughts on whether a Star Trek: Excelsior show would've really worked? I don't think it would've worked as a 2290s-era show, the actors really had aged almost ten years, remember. However, if we put Sulu in 2310 or something, had cameos by Demora and remarks on the Klingon and Romulan situations, maybe younger versions of Garrett and Castille, etc. I'm still dying to know more about that incident with the Romulans (second battle of Tomed?) that led to forty years of closed borders.

Re: Trials and Tribbleations. Truly a classic DS9 episode. Seriously, you can't have too many tribbles, and finally getting an answer on how tribbles can leak out of an access door after the deluge is over is always a good thing.

Now another Trek memory. When I was a kid I actually kind of hated any TOS episode other than Trouble with Tribbles because they seemed a little lame. You know, the way any kid would looking at the cheesy special effects and KIRK ... style ... over-ACTING. In later years I've matured a bit (but not much, look at what I do for a hobby, but then again, as the wise man said "maturity is overrated") and now I can appreciate the genius of the original Roddenberry and see the characters behind the absurd accents and speech patterns. Think about it, Trek has endured because of what's underneath, the vision if you will. It's lasted because it's not another Flash Gordon or (in later years) Star Wars knockoff. Trek isn't about tech, it's not about meaningless action and violence, it's about people. I've often heard that one reason for the popularity of McCoy is that he's just an "old-fashioned country boy from Georgia." There are many more examples of that sort of thing: different people look at the same situation and see different things. We can see how Seven would think that Janeway is trying to impose her will on the former drone, and yet we can also see how Janeway has a wider viewpoint and firmly believes in what she'd doing. Shades of grey have always been a major tenant of the Trek philosophy. Trek bad guys are always understandable. We don't condone Cardassian or Romulan philosophies, but we can see how such a society survived. The same with Ferengi, Kazon, on and on.

I suppose that's a reason for the popularity of Stargate in more recent years. The characters are also three-dimensional (with the exception of the snake-heads of course, but that's part of the fun), their relationships evolve, the issues that they confront are compelling, and so on.

[Nate the Great]

Oh, and that "um, Enterprise?" thing was an ever-so-subtle joke. For the purposes (and acceptable rounding errors) of the exercise, it fit. I was sort of taking a friendly swing at the concept of Enterprise as a landmark. Trying to subconsciously introduce a joke into the minds of the readers along the lines of "oh yeah, that show was a disaster! What a landmark! Ha ha ha!"

[Celeste]

I happend to like Enterprise :|

[Zeke]

I did take your meaning, Nate. (I don't need to tell you what I think of it...)

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

It's not like I'm ambitious enough to go over to startrek.com for research or anything.

Oh, me neither, I just knew offhand.

Re: Flashback. Any thoughts on whether a Star Trek: Excelsior show would've really worked?

Not to overstate my case or anything, but not in a million billion years. I've never understood why anyone but Takei was into the Excelsior campaign. Sulu was by far the dullest character in TOS; no matter how cool a ship you give him, he's not interesting enough to base a show on. And if you're doing a prequel at all, you may as well do what ENT did and set it in an era we haven't explored much. Between the movie series and TNG, we know a great deal about Sulu's time.

and finally getting an answer on how tribbles can leak out of an access door after the deluge is over is always a good thing.

Uh... can't they move a little?

Think about it, Trek has endured because of what's underneath, the vision if you will.

This I can get behind. It's become a cliché to say it, but it's true.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Re: Flashback. Any thoughts on whether a Star Trek: Excelsior show would've really worked?

I sincerely doubt it.

Re: Trials and Tribbleations. Truly a classic DS9 episode. Seriously, you can't have too many tribbles, and finally getting an answer on how tribbles can leak out of an access door after the deluge is over is always a good thing.

Sand dunes, avalanches and land-slips all provide models of how. That said, I quite liked DS9's explanation.

Now another Trek memory. When I was a kid I actually kind of hated any TOS episode other than Trouble with Tribbles because they seemed a little lame. You know, the way any kid would looking at the cheesy special effects and KIRK ... style ... over-ACTING.

When I was a kid, Star Trek (TOS) was all there was, and the effects were state-of-the-art. It all depends upon where you were standing, I guess.

[Nate the Great]

I still don't understand all this Sulu bashing. If people don't like his work, maybe that's because we didn't see enough of him. The whole ensemble-cast-of-seven thing really wasn't around yet. People have to remember that not only were Shatner and Nimoy paid exactly the same, they had the pie split between them very early on. It took a command from on high to get DeForest Kelly into the opening credits. TOS was the Kirk and Spock Show for the most part. That doesn't mean that Sulu is boring, uninteresting, or that he couldn't support his own show.

We know a great deal about Sulu's time? If I'm not mistaken, the major events of the gap between the E-B launch and the E-D launch have yet to be really touched on. Come on, how did the Klingon Empire rebuild themselves so fast? Why did the Romulans lock themselves away? When did we meet the Cardassians exactly? How long was the E-B in service and when was the E-C built? How did Picard beat Kirk's earliest command record? Did Boothby guide Demora at the Academy as well? What did Guinan do during all that time? How come Picard was in command of the Stargazer for like twenty years without being transferred to a bigger ship? Which Sulu inspired Chakotay to join Starfleet? These are not small questions that are easily answered by looking at old episodes. A lot of them haven't been answered at all outside of the noncanon novels.