A unique relationship exists between dedicated Star Trek fans and the passionate creatives who bring to life these optimistic, forward-thinking stories: from the earliest days of the fandom to today, fan energy has served as metaphorical rocket fuel for Star Trek creatives. In the 1960s, pioneering fans not only helped extend the show’s run but, after its 1969 cancellation, kept the intellectual and creative energy alive for decades through fan fiction, self-published zines, fan clubs, and conventions. Humming along like the warp core, this persistent Star Trek fandom kept growing in the 70s and 80s during the era of big screen TOS films. New and old fans celebrated the return to weekly television episodes in 1987 with Star Trek: The Next Generation. What a win for fans when one’s favorite show keeps building fun, compelling new things in its creative universe!
(photo: Ellie Littlechild)
In modern times, Star Trek fans have not only continued to write fanfic, make elaborate videos, and attend conventions—often in spectacular costumes—but some have grown up to be professional Star Trek creatives themselves, from actors to writers to directors. Fans becoming creatives for ever more fans makes a perfect circle. Indeed, the special Trek fan/Trek creative connection operates at both an individual and macro level, from pro-social efforts like Trek the Vote to successful group projects like flying airplane messages over Hollywood in support of favorite shows. In so many ways, fans help create the future of this, their beloved franchise.
Many Trek enthusiasts know about the successful letter writing campaign by thousands of dedicated fans which helped save the show from cancellation after just two seasons. Bjo and John Trimble’s letter writing campaign encouraged an exponential response to the NBC studio executives, whereby each fan was encouraged to write and invite 10 friends to do the same. During this groundswell of fan energy, even busy students at the California Institute of Technology made their pro-Star Trek feelings known in a rare January 1968 protest. One protester’s sign read “It’s totally illogical to cancel Star Trek.” Fascinating.
This collective fan effort helped maintain and grow the energy for more Star Trek that has led to so many shows, films, and other media for almost 60 years—more than 900 television episodes!—not to mention livelihoods for so many Star Trek professionals, both in front of and behind the camera. Alex Kurtzman’s sweet photo with Bjo at the Peabody Awards ceremony acknowledges the importance of this representative (and darling!) fan for the whole Star Trek universe. He wouldn’t be there as the current leader of professional Star Trek creatives if not for her and her fellow fans.
Starting in the 1970s, the earliest Star Trek conventions were organized largely by women. In addition to attending conventions, pioneering fans wrote potent fan fiction as well as popular fandom “how to” texts like Star Trek Lives!: Personal Notes and Anecdotes by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston, which detailed how to host a convention, fanfic publication info, and details about Star Trek fan clubs. In his office, Gene Roddenberry had his own dog-eared copy of Star Trek Lives!, a testament to how fans influence franchise creatives.
(photo: Spotted Giraffe)
In their novels, Star Trek fandom pioneers like Lichtenberg and fellow author Jean Lorrah helped elaborate on Star Trek characters in a way that the actors themselves sometimes chose to integrate into their performances. Lorrah—who wrote an extensive and intimate backstory for Spock’s parents—learned later how her fanfic helped inform Mark Lenard’s performance of Sarek on film. In a 2020 interview with StarTrek.com, Lorrah describes how, “[Mark Lenard] had been asked to autograph so many of my Sarek and Amanda zines through the years that he had finally read them. He told me, ‘I was a little bit afraid to meet you!’ Later, after he got over talking with the woman who had sexualized his character, he confessed that my stories had influenced his later portrayals of Sarek in the films.” Fan energy for expanding upon stories not included in a show’s official collection of episodes continues today with modern works linked to recent shows. Una McCormack’s Wonderlands, explores Michael Burnham and Cleveland Booker’s year together before reuniting with the USS Discovery. Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson wrote the script for the audio drama No Man’s Land, which elaborates on the relationship between Seven and Raffi after Star Trek: Picard Season 1.
When asked her opinion of modern day conventions, author Lichtenberg says, “I’m happy with the way they’ve grown. The torch has been passed to the visual/audio media and the Superhero story—the story of an individual, starkly different from all others, dedicated to making things better for people who aren’t so very similar to themselves.” Although today’s Trek fandom differs from earlier iterations, it continues to promote positive Star Trek values.
Cosplay creatives who bring their A-game animate everyone, from the talent to the convention goers to the world via the internet. At Star Trek: Las Vegas 2024, for example, the convention floor saw a range of creative costuming including an Evil Hologram Janeway and Upgraded Hologram Janeway (with matching coffee cups) as well as a serious looking Kovich/Daniels by @SyFySistas podcaster Subrina Wood, complete with paper notepad and corrected name tag. Also seen at STLV: an ensemble cosplay of Star Trek: Lower Decks Betazoids in party mode and a timely Bell Riots Jadzia costume assembled from thrift store finds by @ThriftyTrekkie. On the 2024 Star Trek cruise, someone dressed as Armus from TNG’s “Skin of Evil,” chased actor Denise Crosby throughout the ship! The Hageman brothers have a message for costume-loving fans who want to do all they can to help create the future franchise: incorporate Prodigy characters into your family’s Halloween plan so we have a better chance to set a course for Season 3.
Star Trek: Las Vegas 2024
(photo: @ThriftyTrekkie)
Fans *really* win in this franchise when young Star Trek fans grow up to be professional Star Trek creatives. These most fortunate super fans—who maybe used to make Star Trek home movies with their friends and who have definitely seen every film and episode from every Trek show—help produce a special creative end product that many regular fans find deeply satisfying.
On The Ready Room hosted by Wil Wheaton for the final episode of Star Trek: Picard, “The Last Generation,” executive producer, show runner, and super fan Terry Matalas confirmed that their creative team hit all the fan favorite moments they had hoped to include by the end of the series. Sitting next to him was his friend, actor Jeri Ryan, who said she expected a positive fan response to Picard season 3 because Terry was in charge. She told him, “We could not have been in better hands because I know you and I know how much you love these characters, and love these stories, and love this world and you’re such a fan yourself […] I knew that you would handle this so respectfully for all of these characters.” Matalas had met Ryan while working on Star Trek: Voyager and, long after that show’s conclusion, continued the story of his favorite Borg as a writer for a Star Trek: The Next Generation comic series called HIVE, which connected Seven and Picard’s stories. His 2012 work eventually helped develop the story of Star Trek: Picard.
As host of the popular Star Trek talk show The Ready Room, actor and writer Wil Wheaton consistently channels his inner Trek super fan: his performance perfectly blends an emotional earnestness with the show’s inherent nerdiness. Wheaton was a TOS fan when he was hired to play Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and his fandom has continued in one of his subsequent careers as a Star Trek fiction writer expanding on the “Time Lord” adventures of Wesley the Traveler. His character in Star Trek: Prodigy delightfully taps into this “Space, time, thought!” energy, almost as if he wrote his own next creative life chapter.
“The Devourer of All Things” Part 1, Star Trek: Prodigy
Can you imagine how exciting it was for super fan Elias Toufexis—who used to make Star Trek home movies with his friends—to get cast for a significant role in Star Trek: Discovery? On his social media channels, he posted an old video clip of himself in a marine captain’s cap while he and his friends did “the shake” to indicate their starship under fire while someone at tactical pushed buttons on a cardboard console. Alongside this fandom artifact, he shared his fully made up look as Breen scion L’ak with the message, “Look here. From being obsessed with and actually filming Star Trek movies in my friend’s basement at 14 years old to…actually being in Star Trek. Bonkers right?” Sometimes, even the biggest dreams come true, as also happened for super fan Todd Stashwick, who was delighted to play complicated Captain Liam Shaw in Star Trek: Picard and join the greater Star Trek family.
Occasionally, a super fan like Tawny Newsome needs to put in extra work to make her Trek dreams come true, as when she had to convince Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan to change the script for “Hear All, Trust Nothing” so the character Mariner she voices would visit Deep Space Nine during the episode. “How are you denying me this as a fan?” she asked Mike: “And he was like, ‘Tawny, we’re making a TV show. This isn’t about your wants and dreams.’ But I think he ultimately heard the wisdom and what I was saying. And then he did rewrite the ending for me.” How excellent that this fun show knows how to keep the fans—and super fans—happy.
Of course, not all of us fans are destined to work with Trek in front of the mic and camera like Tawny Newsome or behind the scenes in the writer’s room like Aaron Waltke of Star Trek: Prodigy, an easter egg master and certified super fan. Most of us resemble the fans who contributed to the 2019 documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In that film, we see the actors and behind-the-scenes team but we also see normal nerds and regular old geeks: everyday fans who’s energy and attention helps sustain and build the future of this franchise. All the different fans giving their DS9 insights felt more genuine than hearing from any famous media critic: the honesty and love from a diversity of fans made that documentary what it was.
In our weird and complex world, it helps to have spaces like the Star Trek fandom where friendships and found-family relationships form and people can connect with others in emotionally and intellectually meaningful ways. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when so many events had been cancelled, one individual Star Trek creative and one individual fan deployed Star Trek values on a deeply impactful individual level. The fan website SidCity.net, managed by fan Melissa Lowery, provided an opportunity for actor Alexander Siddiq to link up remotely with fans in Zoom-based conversation, providing an important mental health lifeline for fans. Star Trek creatives from other shows have also teamed up with individual fans to help make the future we want to see, including John Billingsly and Bonnie Gordon working with the Trektivism and TrekTalks teams to help raise funds for the Hollywood Food Coalition, among other projects. To date, Star Trek fans and creatives have helped raise over $350,000 for this anti-hunger organization. The Trektivism hosts aim “to nurture community and drive societal transformation,” sharing information among the greater Star Trek fandom and making individual contacts in the associated Discord server.
Many fans appreciate the individual Trek fan/Trek creative connections they make at conventions and beyond, but *everyone* loves Big Star Trek Messages from the fandom (except NBC executives in 1968, who received A Lot of mail from those fans). In the 70s, those early letter writing Star Trek fans got back to work when the first space shuttle was scheduled to be named Constitution. The fans urged NASA to rename this early spaceship Enterprise. It worked! Another successful recent group project was funding airplanes to fly over the Los Angeles area towing messages including “RENEW STAR TREK: PRODIGY! GO FAST!” Marveling at the fan energy that sent yet another pro-Prodigy message to the skies via airplane, Mulgrew wrote on social media, “No other fanbase IN THE WORLD can compare to #StarTrek fans.”
From the internet to the convention stage, Star Trek: Prodigy star Kate Mulgrew has always expressed sincere appreciation to Star Trek fans for the very things we love about ourselves: we’re smart, curious, creative, and kind. And we sometimes communicate with our favorite creatives in big, bold ways like airplane messages. After the release of Prodigy’s second season, some fans began to crowd source donations for a pizza party to thank the writers’ room, who really knocked it out of the park, as Janeway might say. The Star Trek fandom’s longevity and sincerity helps make these connections happen. Today’s fans will continue to provide the rocket fuel—or pizza!—to power the storytelling of Star Trek creatives.
