Trekkers and Trekkies - what's the difference?
I have just joined a Star Trek Forum on the official site for the latest movie Star Trek XI.
I did it because, well, I thought I might have something worth saying…you know…since I AM a Star Trek fan from waaaay back. Saw my first episode back in 1972 - in Ohio - while visiting a friend (there was no television in South Africa at the time!). It was a replay of the original series, or ‘TOS’ as it is referred to on ‘the foum’ (see, I am getting down with the lingo and terminology). I watched it trans-like every week at its allotted timeslot, much to my friend’s chagrin as Star Trek time invaded 'taking-overseas-visitor-site-seeing time'. I remember getting back to South Africa and trying to explain to my school friends about this mind-blowing amazing science fiction series I’d seen on TV in the USA, but I might as well have been speaking Klingon for all the attention or understanding it got me! But I digress.
Back at the forum I quickly investigated the “Voyager” sub-forum first, as it has been, and always shall be, my favourite. It seems messages are posted in ‘threads’, which I DO understand as I HAVE been involved in a website message board before….but something seems to have happened in the expansion from “message boards” to “forums” since the ‘90’s. Remember when a radio/hi-fi/record player had a separate dial for every function you wanted it to do? If you wanted to switch it on, there was an “on” button. If you wanted to find a radio station there was a knob you turned, if you wanted to use the record player function there was a button you pressed, if you wanted to fiddle with the bass you turned the knob labeled “bass”, etc. (Actually, just looked at the word ‘knob’ and wondered when last I had to type it!! Nothing is a ‘knob’ anymore, it is a dial, a switch, a button. A ‘knob’ is just soooo four decades ago!) But I digress again, in fact have digressed twice in this very paragraph!
Basically, the operation of internet message boards in the ‘90’s, compared to that of forums today, is like comparing those old hi-fi players to mp3 players. Well, it confuses me, OK?!
Back to ‘threads’. It seems the sheer volume of messages posted on forums and in threads is now so substantial that a thread on an average popular website’s forum today is the size of the entire message board I used to co-moderate….back in the ‘90’s. So basically, what I am saying here, is that my evaluation of the discussions and information I have discovered on this particular Star Trek forum so far may well be tainted by the fact that I have really only accidentally stumbled across the tip of the iceberg of the vast ice continent that is the Whole Forum!
Right, that justified, we were popping in to a thread in the Voyager sub-forum. There a discussion wafted along about the merits of a relationship between Chakotay and Captain Janeway. Is there nothing new in the universe, I thought to myself? Of COURSE we all wanted a relationship between the dashing Native American first officer, and the commanding, verbally potent, and powerful female captain of the Starship Voyager! Who didn’t? They were extremely well cast, (although I must say, since starting to collect the series on dvd - I only have the first 3 seasons so far - and watching them again, I’m finding Janeway more and more irritating, and Chakotay more and more attractive!! *wink*) and it was obvious Chakotay had a 'thing' for Janeway but was far too much of a gentleman to force it - "Resolutions" Season 2.
A little disappointed I scrolled back through the thread of postings, and found that most on this thread agreed that Chakotay and Janeway were definitely a matched pair, way more so than Chakotay and 7 would be. Huh? Did I miss something? Was there ever a ‘dalliance’, or hint at a possible ‘dalliance’ between Chakotay and 7of9? I thought Harry Kim was crazy about her, and, just FYI, I felt they would make a hot couple had the writers decided to go that way! Made a quick mental note to go and order a couple more seasons fast! I am obviously appallingly lacking in my 'Voyager' lore, and need to check up on these things asap!
Burying my ‘Voyager’ shortcomings somewhere safe for now, I decided to go and check out my second favourite off-spring of the Star Trek franchise - “Enterprise”! I mean no disrespect to the Original Series, (or TOS, if you remember it is so called!). Grandaddy TOS is still a wonder to behold and experience. Testimony to its greatness is JJ Abrams' amazing origins movie, and how easily the characters, the cannon, the ship itself, translated into the demands and structure of entertainment in our own times. Digressing again.
Despite its many outspoken detractors I loved the ‘grittiness’ of “Enterprise”, after all the slick, smooth offerings that preceded it. I loved the raspiness of Russell Watson’s vocals in its poignant signature music (this is the only ST theme tune to have vocals), in stark contrast to the stirring military soaring orchestral themes of the previous 4 Series’ and the movies made to that point. The ship (the Enterprise NX-01) was unpainted. Inside looked more like a functional, technologically advanced submarine, rather than an upscale hotel! I always felt I could happily and safely explore the galaxy if I could have my ‘Holiday Inn’ room, along with wall paintings and a ficus plant, aboard the Galaxy Class USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), the ship from “Star Trek, The Next Generation”. However Starfleet’s very first warp-drive ship captained by Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and his gorgeous Beagle Porthos, looked like it meant business! There was something in this series that stirs the pioneer spirit in ways no other Star Trek to date can.
So surely I would find something worth discussing here? The thread I found myself in was having an argument about…well, I’m not too sure what it was about actually. There seemed to be some debate as to who had warp drive before the Cardassian War. For the uninitiated, the Cardassian War is something only referred to in the later series’, and seems to have taken place some time between Captain Archer’s times, and Kirk’s time…or was it between Kirk’s time and Jean-Luc Picard’s time? The contentions seemed to be about something Spock had said (either in the original series, or one of the movies, I don’t know) which started this whole debate. It’s all rather confusing, and to my mind, rather unnecessary! I read several posts trying to find out how this related to the series “Enterprise”, got to what looked like the beginning of this thread, and *whispers* didn’t know how to leave this thread in order to find another! How embarrassing!
And here I am back at my original point. If I cannot navigate a forum, do I have any right joining the community of Trekkers who frequent it?
I refuse to believe I am too old! Yet I do seem to feel that way. I feel like a 'Trekkie', surrounded by 'Trekkers'. From what I have read so far I would put the average age of these posters at around 25. Although I shouldn’t be surprised to find 14 yrs olds. And I’m sure many are in their 30’s…maybe even 40’s…..
Does anyone know where the 50-something Star Trek fans hang out? If you do, please let me know! There have to be many of us out there! The original series first aired in 1966, and Gene Rodenberry (Star Trek’s creator) was born in 1921 - died in 1991. When did we ‘older’ folk capitulate?
Mind you, most 50-something Star Trek fans don’t need to go online at all. They can attend any of the hundred’s of Conventions in most parts of the world each year, or subscribe cheaply to any of the monthly publications. But if you are a 50-something Star Trek fan living in South Africa, buying things with South African currency, you have little choice but to figure out forum threads, and join the 25yr olds debating whether Guinen and Scotty could have met when TNG crew saved the Enterpise B from that energy thread (‘thread’ here meaning a huge, weird, thready, lightening thingy in space that moves along at warp 9 and swallows up everything it encounters; not a ‘thread’ on an internet website forum. Just so you know).
Apparently someone at Trek BBS is building a full-scale Galaxy class space-craft, inside and out. It is 1048.41 meters long. They figure there are scaling differences on the ship, and what does THAT say about the scaling of OTHER ships in the franchise, not to mention the new movie’s Enterprise scale?! Whoa, I for one am aghast! Someone else said that now all we need is a 1.1 scale replica orbiting the earth, and yet another commented “Do ya know what that would COST?” Er…yeah, mate, THAT’S why there isn’t one up there already! The cost! LOL!
Oh my, they do tend to get so carried away with it all, don’t they? Well I am off to polish my Star Fleet Com Badge, and with true Academy grit am going to dive head-first into the Star Trek Forum and figure out how to navigate those threads! Perhaps if I re-configure the warp na-cells, and run a diagnostic on the bio-gel packs…..
Live Long, and Prosper.