Welcome, Star Trek fans and Sci Fi freaks, chronologists of the future and misguided Babylon 5 enthusiasts, to the very first issue of "The Star Trek journey"! Having gained net access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (well, theoretically), I can't resist to take the great opportunity to submit my two cents on the most recent, most important events regarding Star Trek - every week. Past headlines and updates, current rumors and episode spoilers and my own projections for the future... you all find it here, so please move out if you don't want to know anything about the upcoming, great events! And be warned: this is not a news coverage - it's pure, subjective, more-or-less-accurate speculation... Everything here is written from my point of view. If you don't mind, then, dear fellow travellers... fasten your seatbelts, join my personal trek to the stars and enjoy the ride!

The weekly flashback

Well, it was hell of a week, wasn't it? I think this was the most exciting week for Star Trek since, well, uh, I don't know. Of this year, definitely.

At any rate, it made me start writing these pathetic lines...

I think, regarding Star Trek, we currently experience a pretty unique situation, anyway. A situation similiar to the months before the start of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" back in 1987.

We know the 5th series is ready to launch, that it is supposed to be dramatically different from all Trek series produced before, perhaps that it even "re-invents" Star Trek (whatever this means), and that they started with pre-production and casting recently, but that's pretty much all we know - for sure.
Nevertheless, we had a major breakthrough this week - we received the "information" that the series will be titled "Star Trek: Enterprise", featuring another ship bearing the legendary name, and we got the "Series V casting sheet". I write this in quotation marks because I believe at the moment, none of them can be regarded as carved into stone. But more on this "event of the week" later.

On the other hand, we have the Star Trek: Voyager series finale scheduled for late May, bringing the crew home (now if that's untrue...) and involving the Borg in some way, but that's pretty much all we know - for sure.
Everywhere in the newsgroups and forums you meet people that tell you "Voyager will make a giant leap in 'Q2', believe me, I have a script" or "Neelix will die in 'Destiny', believe me, I have script" or even "Janeway will become the next Borg queen in the finale, believe me, I don't have a script, but who needs a script?" Indeed - in these days, proofs have become rare in view of the multitude of speculations and assumptions. What will actually happen in the episodes leading to the series finale, let alone the last two hours themselves - that is still a question mark wrapped inside an enigma housed inside a puzzle.

So we have a situation where the fans are tormented by their (good or bad) expectations, their wishes and hopes, where everybody is speculating and speculating and speculating, but is lacking definite and official facts, where the tension is about to exceed its peak...

Well, it couldn't be more exciting. It's like walking through a mine field. You will find a lot of explosives, but you don't know for sure which is actually one ...

Topic of the week

"Fake or not Fake?" - The Series V Casting sheet

Oh well. This Major Star Trek Event^TM released on Sunday, March 4, reminds me of the day back in March 1998 when the (true!) production draft for Star Trek: Insurrection was published. I read it, was excited, surprised, touched... but in the end, I didn't know what to think of it. I had to wait a pretty long time until I could be absolutely sure that it isn't a fake. At least, I had that gut feeling that it must be true. It doesn't rang false...

Now, at least in this respect the issue with the series V casting sheet is a completely different story.

But first things first. On last Sunday, at 8 o'clock in the morning (CET), I checked news & mails quickly because I wouldn't spent the day in town... And as always when you don't have any time: this bomb! Naturally, I took the time, and glanced over it shortly. Well, I can tell you that I was already suspicious at that time... The gut feeling... it rang false... But, I was too excited to discover any of the (fairly obvious) prooves.

Yet in the evening I had the time to read through it more thoroughly. I think it was a even greater shock to discover all those little suspicious in-jokes, the inconsistencies, oddities and moments of déjà ju in it...

I still wanted to believe it, but after I dealt several ours with it, discussing it with other fans in the forums...

Hell, what was the person thinking that wrote this crap???

Before I give somes examples... if you haven't "enjoyed" the writing, you can read it here.

So we have yet another white American male captain Jackson Archer...

Jackson Archer... what a silly name. It somehow reminded me of Valerie Archer from "In the Flesh" on the other hand. But who wants to assess a document in view of the silliness of a name?

Speaking of names... Here we have the most obvious oddities: "Subcommander T'Pau" seems to be a crossbreed between the Vulcan from "Amok Time" and a Romulan officer... Still, my favorites are the Admirals "Forest" (DeFOREST "Bones" Kelley), "Williams" (WILLIAM "Kirk" Shatner) and "Leonard" (LEONARD "Spock" Nimoy).
I think I would have laughed out loudly on this great insider-joke if the situation wouldn't have been so tense for me and the other fans ...

Who laughs on a day where he has spent three or four hours analyzing a fake? Merde.

More grave than the names are, of course, the similarities between this crew and the other Star Trek casts, most notably the TOS cast. The captain sounds like a imitatee of "the" Kirk himself, mixed with some "Bones" qualities (doesn't like Vulcans). The doctor is, of course, The Doctor from Voyager. He thinks humanity is faszinating. Oh well. The "human mirror" character would be again the medical officer. Who would believe it? And the "Southern", passionate engineer? That definitely is a rehashed "Bones"!

Personally, I always thought it was too much a coinincidence that exactly when we know for sure that pre-production and casting must have began or is about to begin, and everybody believes in the "Birth of Federation" concept (referred to as "BoF" from now on), we get this suspicious little paper...

Hey? Didn't they say that almost nobody knows the entire truth of series V except Rick Berman and Brannon Braga? And didn't they say they've taken the most strict security measures to ensure that *nobody* will know *anything* about it until they want it (and it has worked perfectly up to this moment, hasn't it?).  And the real concept should not have reached the internet, according to Berman's recent statement. So it can't be BoF, as much as we want it now (OTOH, I remember some months ago when still all options were regarded as possible no one liked this concept! What a change of mind...).

Consequently, the situation now is the following: one fraction abandoned the cast sheet because of the obvious reasons (you will find much more in the various threads), having been written by a person who has a bad sense of humour, including all those little reference to test the fans, or a person from TPTB to misinform and mislead people (what a cruel joke!). The other fraction thinks it's at least partly true. And some even can't stop believing that it must be true. And these three groups are still arguing and discussing over it again and again ... Now this is what I call a causuality loop...

After all, even the secret sources of the various news sites are discordant. A few days after the publication of the casting sheet, some sources revealed that it's pure crap, some sources say the characters are true, but it's not a 22nd, but 29th century premise (which would be, after all, much less interesting IMHO, given what we've seen in "Future's End" and "Relativity"), and some sources confirmed it. And some sources... turned out to be a fake themselves! It's kinda crazy...

Well, this experience has taught me one thing: don't take anything for granted until it has been *officially* confirmed. We're still waiting for this confirmation, although "we might get an official announcement in a few days" (Paramount official a few days ago)...

And the whole matter showed how the curiosity and expectation of the fans is nearing the boiling point. We would believe everything that looks like some official series V information at this time. Ironically, the situation pretty much resembles the one described in "The Voyager Conspiracy", an episode that everybody branded as being highly unlikely and unbelievable. How could Janeway and Chakotay believe this hare-brained theory with its obvious weaknesses... I don't need to list the parallels?

A rumor is more dangerous than Trilithium explosives - travelling at warp 10 and causing incredible damage among an entire fandom...!

Up to the real Major Star Trek Event^TM, for me, series V won't be "Star Trek: Enterprise" (although the title is quite appropriate, nicely ambiguous), but "Series V", featuring Captain "X" and Commander "Y".

And in the improbable, but still possible case that the casting sheet or the other rumors on series V (including the "news" that the "Enterprise" will have no warp nacelles. Oh well...) are true, I think I will have to consult my psychotherapist more frequently ... ;-)

After all, the whole story had at least one positive side-effect: it inspired the fans to think over their (unrealistic) wishes and the real possibilities for series V. As many, I am - despite all unclarities - still a supporter of the BoF concept with its chances to "go back to the roots" of Trek both literally and symbolically, back to the sense of wonder, to the exploration of the final frontier of space and the human possibilities... Moreover, I would like to see a woman again in the big seat - since Janeway proved that women can be the better commanders, combining aptitude and experience with a somehow more human, more personal attitude towards their crew. And I would like to go back to the multi-culturalism of TOS and TNG... leaving the nationalistic, anthropocentric and america-centric view of the world behind and really venturing to the 21st century.

But in the end, it's like I said in the beginning: at the moment, we don't know (almost) anything for sure, and everything is possible. The sky is the limit.

A final wrap-up

Headlines of the week

- The Series V Casting Sheet - Be happy that I wrote the last word with two e's! Pure nonsense according to what we know about the series up to now. We know that we are supposed not to know anything, and it's my feeling that TPTB is still successful...

- Neelix To Leave Voyager In "Destiny"? - One of the better explored characters will drop out long before the finale? Couldn't they bear the Leola root stew anymore? Seriously, it would be good for Neelix, granted, but it's pure speculation and highly unlikely given the contracts the actors have and the fact that it's only the last but one episode.

- The Borg Are Back In An Action Adventure Finale. - This says Ken Biller on Voyager's last two hours, for which he obviously wrote the script. So no reason to doubt it. Read more on this, the consequences and some speculations in the next issue of "The Star Trek Journey"!

- Voyager Finale To Be Titled "Endgame", Partly Playing In The Future - To be honest, a rumor that I hope don't turns out to be true. The title might be ambiguous (referring to the finale phase of Chess), but I don't know if it's really appropriate for Voyager's last. And the issue with the scene from the future: it would not only be a déjà vu regarding TNG's series finale (which partly played in the past and the future), but also Voyager's own episodes "Timeless" (partly playing several decades in the future) and "Shattered" (showing a future Naomi Wildman as well). I don't think TPTB will be that unimaginative, as well as I can't see how to combine that with a major Borg appearance...

Threads of the Week

- "What happened to Christianity?" (General Discussion, TrekBBS, trektoday.com) - Wow! This was a one of the most interesting exchanges of opinions I've probably ever read in a forum! A very controversial topic which could have heated the minds, but interestingly, almost all fans (who usually already tend to disagree regarding such "minor" questions as "DS9 or VOY?") agreed that religion has been abandoned by Star Trek for good reason. A must see.

- "Are We Nerds?" (General Discussion, TrekBBS, trektoday.com) - As a fellow trekker and fellow nerd, I must admit: a very sympathetic, open-minded and honest discussion on how "fanatic" Star Trek Fans really are, if they are completely obsessed by this "TV series" and if they have lost every sense for reality.

Comment of the Week

- "No Comment!" - Paramount officials being asked if the series V casting sheet is genuine.

Quote of the Week

- "Reality is for people who cannot handle Star Trek."

That's it - at least for now. Expect some in-depth discussion on Voyager's not-too-far-finale in the next issue, which will be, hopefully, a lot shorter!

Live long and prosper,

Christian Rühl

Webmaster - Star Trek Dimension

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