Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of March 1st through the 7th.
Monday March 1st “Procreation does not require changing how you smell or writing bad poetry, or sacrificing various plants to serve as tokens of affection.” Odo- The Forsaken, Stardate: 46925.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #WeAreStarfleet
“What we do now, here, in this moment, has the power to determine the future.” Spock- Perpetual Infinity, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #WeAreStarfleet
“The more they over think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” Scotty- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Stardate: 8210.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
Thursday March 4th “You are superior to no one! Never underestimate your prey or disrespect its abilities. If you do…you will become the hunted.” Karr- The Killing Game, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #WeAreStarfleet
“Life is change.” T’Pol- Terra Prime, Date: January 22, 2155 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #WeAreStarfleet
Saturday March 6th “When you were a student of his, Christine, you must have often heard Dr. Korby remark how freedom of movement and choice produced the Human spirit.” Dr. Brown- What Are Little Girls Made Of?, Stardate: 2712.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #WeAreStarfleet
There is no more despised people in the galaxy than the xBs. People either see us as property to be exploited, or as a hazard to be warehoused. Our hosts, the Romulans, have a far more expansive vision. They see us as both. Hugh- The End is the Beginning #StarTrek #StarTrekPicard
While I’ve been going through old graphics and documents to find items to post on my website, I’ve re-discovered a few things that I thought were kewl enough to share. I decided to post one of them now.
Back in February 2013, just before Star Trek: Into Darkness was released in theaters, we were contacted by Star Magazine asking if someone from Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet would be interested in participating in an interview for an up-coming special issue dedicated to the movie. They had sent invitations out to different fans and organizations and they would be selecting the best responses for publication.
Now I’ve been interviewed by local radio and television stations regarding my Star Trek fandom (some of the photos are in my Kewl Stuff online gallery). Podcasts have invited me to join an episode and talk about geeky things. I’ve also been interviewed by local newspapers (I’ll have to find and scan those articles as well). However I had never had a chance to be interviewed by a national publication until this invitation. After some encouragement from my friends, Dennis Hollinger and Richard Henline, I agreed to participate.
The interviewer sent me a series of questions, which I answered as honestly as I could. I sent back my response thinking, it will be kewl if this happens, but I’m not expecting to be published. To my surprise, I was informed in mid-March that my interview had been one of three selected for publication. A high quality photo of me was requested and Star Magazine wanted my address to send me several free issues.
The publisher sent me an image of the cover first, which is the first time I heard that this would be the “Battle of the Star Trek Superfans.” Uh… what? A few days later the issues arrived in the mail. Here is a scan of the covers and the interview.
As you can see from the interviews, I was “battling” the author of the Star Trek: The Visual Dictionary, Raul Ruditis and Anthony Pascale, the editor of the Star Trek news site TrekMovie.com (a site I visit quite regularly for reputable Star Trek information). Not bad company. I would love to be a published author of a Star Trek resource book (I have some ideas in mind) or on a site like TrekMovie. What was interesting is that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about the “battle”. At least one of the above gentlemen contacted me by twitter stating “I surrender to you in the battle”. This made me upset because I was going to concede to him. We didn’t want to battle, we just wanted to talk Trek.
I don’t know who else was contacted for possible inclusion in the interview. But I do know that Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet beat out one of the larger international fan clubs for publication. I thought that was a nice feather in our cap.
Some of the other questions that were asked, but not published were as follows.
What would you name the next Star Trek film?Star Trek: Infinite Combinations
Do you have a favorite piece of Star Trek memorabilia?I love collecting the Star Trek technical manuals. I have all of the official books and a large variety of fan created items. The amount of creativity into “explaining” how this make-believe tech works is inspiring. A favorite short story I read is where a post-apocalyptic society finds a collection of Star Trek tech manuals. They end up using the books as inspiration to rebuilding their civilization. (This story is “Half the Battle” by Harry Turtledove which was originally published in Stardate Magazine)
If you could give J.J. Abrams some direction about the next movie, what would it be? Less lensflare. If there is not going to be a continuation after the third contractual movie, then the final scenes should be showing the universe reverting back to the prime-universe established in the television series. (At the time, a third movie had been highly speculated, but it didn’t seem like there would be any more Kelvin timeline movies after that one, hopefully we will get one more)
After the issue was released, my mother went out and purchased a copy for her scrapbook. A lot of friends also went out and purchased copies (some even asked me to sign them). Every once in a while, this issue pops up again in the wild. When I see it, I have a sense of pride that this was my first national interview. Thank you to Star Magazine for the opportunity.
So there have been two trends that I’ve noticed on the internet. Yea, these may have been around for a while but I want to talk about them for a second. The evil of click-bait sites and videos and the good of easter egg and behind the scenes videos.
There have been a lot of sites and videos with “Trusted Sources” spreading rumors about some of our favorite franchises and shows. What bugs me is the way they try to sell themselves. Usually with a headline that screams click-bait. These type of sensationalized headlines are a form of social engineering. They want you to react to the video/article and the only way you can do that is by clicking on the link to their site. “Has {insert showrunner name here} been fired at {studio name here}?”, “{Famous person} ruined our favorite franchise, here is the proof.” or “{Famous person} reacts to my video/post/website/outlandish claim.” See how they can practically recycle the headline just by switching out a few details and boom, another click-bait headline. Some of these videos and sites can get to be quite toxic.
Another trend has not been quite as negative, but still very click-baitish. Streaming services have been a gold mine for fans of various franchises. The studios are trying to attract subscribers by taking chances on shows that may not make it onto the over-the-air or cable channels. This has brought us more shows in the Star Trek (I’m looking forward to the Pike series, Strange New Worlds) and Star Wars universe (love The Mandalorian). There is an upcoming series for Battlestar Galactica and it looks like I’m finally going to be able to see Moon Knight on the screen. While this is good, it also gives rise to rumor websites with headlines like “{Character name} series confirmed.” At the rate they are pumping out these “articles” you would think that we would soon see a series focused on Captain John Harriman (would the XO be Commander Ferris Bueller?) for Paramount+ and Disney+ releasing The Star Wars Muppets (actually I’d watch a SW Muppet series, but don’t quote me as a source). These rumors are not as outlandish as the “{show name} canceled immediately due to plummeting ratings.” headlines and I think that’s what makes it a little bit dangerous. Some actors want to return to the roles that made them famous. Others never want to return to the franchises if they don’t have to. But there is a little bit of a toe-hold that these “news sites” to say that a new series is coming soon and you better read about it here. When you listen to these sites, they use the weasel words that you commonly see on those Ancient Alien shows. “Could this be true? It’s possible.” Ugh that bugs me more than it should.
Why are these sites and videos posting these dubious claims? In one word, money. The more clicks a site/video has, the more eyeballs see them. The more eyeballs they get, the more they can sell themselves to advertisers. Technically nothing is stopping them from being the Weekly World News of the internet. So like spam and robo-calls, they continue to be a scourge on the internet.
What can you do about them? Well learn to spot click-bait headlines. If it sounds like it was posted to get an emotion, be suspicious. Look at the source. Most social media posts will give you the domain the article/video is coming from. If it’s not from a source with a good history (for most entertainment news that’s usually Variety, Deadline, Entertainment Weekly, one of the mainstream media companies, etc.) or from the studio itself, then be suspicious. However be careful, there are still rumor news sources that are on TV or in print. If you are suspicious about a headline, then remember that Google is your friend. If a rumor is close to being true, multiple sites will post about it. With the rumor websites there may only be one or two sites posting about the topic. If your Spidey-Senses are going off, don’t click on the link or video. By clicking on them, you are giving them what they really want.
Now, in my humble opinion, there is a really good trend going on right now with some online videos. The “Easter Egg” videos that point out some of the things in the background. Some are very spot-able, some are very hidden (hence the name Easter Eggs). There are some video makers that will freeze-frame certain scenes and translate from the alien languages (if translations exists) to dig up hidden details. I am a big fan of Star Trek and Star Wars so I’ve noticed a lot of these Easter Eggs in Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks and The Mandalorian. So for me the fun was seeing if I had missed anything and if I had spotted stuff the video makers themselves had missed.
Another good thing about these videos are for the series I’ve been enjoying, but I don’t know much about the source material. The latest example has been WandaVision. While I know Marvel’s Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man, other-mainstreams, etc. I only know very little of the other superheroes that Marvel has in their catalog. I’m more of a DC man myself, but I don’t turn my nose up at the Marvel non-mutant titles (don’t ask me about the mutants now, that will be saved for another blog post). After encouragement from friends, I checked out WandaVision. I found that I enjoyed the writing, the acting and the special effects. But I felt like I was missing something that came from a deep source. So I turned to the same Easter Egg video makers that I had enjoyed before and they expanded my understanding of the WandaVision story line. In the last episode of WandaVision there was a “big reveal” from a bad guy (no spoilers so don’t worry). I felt that this reveal wouldn’t have made a big impact if I hadn’t watched the Easter Egg videos telling me who these characters were. Thus I was “in on the story” when it happened.
While I’m encouraging you to avoid the click-bait sites, I would also encourage you to check out the effort that goes into the Easter Egg videos. Let me know what you think of these videos that have been released.
