Being a Star Trek Fan
If there is one thing about me that is probably well known, I am a Star Trek fan. I have been from day one. The move 'Free Enterprise' was a pretty good representation of me. I was that kid that got beat up because I spoke Trek language. William Shatner wasn't my inner companion. I wanted to be Spock. When Galaxy Quest came out, my best friend and I went to see it. Apparently, he was studying me because I wasn't laughing, but he was laughing. Further, his opinion was I pouted the entire way through the movie because Tim Allen was poking fun at something I took quite seriously.
Star Trek was my religion of choice. It was sacred. Don't mess with my Trek. That didn't mean I lacked humor. When William Shatner made fun of Trek in the movie 'Airplane 2,'- "We don't have a Bridge? Why aren't I informed about these things?!" Or going "Shh, shh" to answer the doors. Seeing him on the monitor, but he's right behind the wall that opens up. Or watching the original Saturday Night Live Cast spoofing Trek. Or laughing when Spock does a cameo on the Carol Burnett show. Dad like Carol Burnet, but was not a Trek fan.
My father knew I was a Trek fan. He served in the military, the Navy, and his last two years of Service was on the USS Enterprise! 82 to 84. He was actually on board the ship when they filmed scenes for Star Trek IV! He could have actually been on deck for that 'flight' scene when Chekov tries to get away. He opted out. I was so mad!
In 84, on the University of San Antonio, I was at a concert for high school choir, and discovered a flier saying James Doohan would be giving a talk. At that time, I had never heard of or been a part of a convention. This wasn't a convention. He was simply going around to college on behalf of NASA discussing the shuttle program, showing the blooper reel, and giving a talk. I pulled the flier off the wall and was determined i would be there. Apparently, so was everyone else. The fire martial nearly shut the meeting down so many people showed up. James Doohan is one of the nicest celebrities I have met in person. He spoke to everyone that evening, lingering way past hours. He even spoke to me. It was personable. He was funny! I probably need to digitize that speech and make it available. I got it on a micro-cassette.
Anyway, I am a Trek fan. I wrote fan fiction! It has done alright in terms of downloads, but when you consider how many fans there actually are, maybe the numbers don't mean what I think they mean. At free-ebooks.net my Trek fiction has totaled, all together, over a 150k of downloads, and if i could have had a dollar for every download, I could have easily paid off my student loans. At one time, before the 2008 reboot came out, someone had put my stories on amazon kindle. It took six months to get amazon to take it down. it's back up. I suspect some of stuff was used in the 2008 reboot. JJ said in forbes they read fanfiction to get an idea. My first book, "Star Trek: a Touch of Greatness" published online in 2004, was awful. It's the most popular of the books, though. It had the first free-fall/transporter rescue. Mine was more technical than the one JJ did, and in a way I think more dramatic than Chekov running down to the transporter room, but hey, it looked just like I imagined!
You might think I am perturbed that it seems like some of my stuff was used. A little. I do want to grow and be recognized for my writing. A part of me is satisfied, yes- Maybe Ihave what it takes and I just need to keep writing until I master this. At the time, though, i wasn't writing to be famous. I was doing a form of narrative therapy, and simply writing from my greatest position of strength, the Star Trek Universe. I put myself in that 'verse and tried to script out a narrative that wold be meaningful and help me grow as a person.
That worked! I actually healed from past traumas.
Interestingly, that leads me to today, when a friend at work said, "Do you watch Black Mirror?" Why, no, I don't. "You need to check out the 4th season episode entitled, "the USS Callister."
I checked it out.
How dare they write about my life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgTtyfgzGc0
Now, the preview looks fun, but it's actually quite dark. Oh, hence the name Black Mirror!
https://digg.com/video/black-mirror-uss-callister
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjPmG-cWZCQ
So, the question is raises for me. What if this is not just about the power of someone putting others into their computer game? What is just having thoughts of others is sufficient to be exercising power over them? What if every day dream, every fantasy, every dream you ever had was just as real as this universe, or a gaming universe? What if we are gods all the time? What if that's why we incarnate into human bodies, a cradle of sort, to experience limitations while we learn control?
On another note, once you know who the antagonist is in this episode, what role do the co-workers have in creating the monster? Do they allow the antagonist opportunities to be more open? Doesn't ridicule create fear and animosity? Think back to school years. If you weren't bullied, you can probably imagine someone who was bullied. I can make arguments that sometimes the one being bullied elicited the behavior towards them. Maybe not consciously, and maybe not a 100 percent of the time. I was often the new kid. I got bullied. I see it as a way of the established folks testing my merit. I also remember ducking some of it- 'oh, you think I am fat look at that kid over there.' Not a great way of doing that, but it was a solution. It worked more often than not. It wasn't until I learned courage that I took it on more directly. But would I have learned courage if I wasn't challenged?
I don't know. I find this Black Mirror episode to be intriguing and meaningful in many ways, and hope to learn more from it as I watch it again.
Star Trek was my religion of choice. It was sacred. Don't mess with my Trek. That didn't mean I lacked humor. When William Shatner made fun of Trek in the movie 'Airplane 2,'- "We don't have a Bridge? Why aren't I informed about these things?!" Or going "Shh, shh" to answer the doors. Seeing him on the monitor, but he's right behind the wall that opens up. Or watching the original Saturday Night Live Cast spoofing Trek. Or laughing when Spock does a cameo on the Carol Burnett show. Dad like Carol Burnet, but was not a Trek fan.
My father knew I was a Trek fan. He served in the military, the Navy, and his last two years of Service was on the USS Enterprise! 82 to 84. He was actually on board the ship when they filmed scenes for Star Trek IV! He could have actually been on deck for that 'flight' scene when Chekov tries to get away. He opted out. I was so mad!
In 84, on the University of San Antonio, I was at a concert for high school choir, and discovered a flier saying James Doohan would be giving a talk. At that time, I had never heard of or been a part of a convention. This wasn't a convention. He was simply going around to college on behalf of NASA discussing the shuttle program, showing the blooper reel, and giving a talk. I pulled the flier off the wall and was determined i would be there. Apparently, so was everyone else. The fire martial nearly shut the meeting down so many people showed up. James Doohan is one of the nicest celebrities I have met in person. He spoke to everyone that evening, lingering way past hours. He even spoke to me. It was personable. He was funny! I probably need to digitize that speech and make it available. I got it on a micro-cassette.
Anyway, I am a Trek fan. I wrote fan fiction! It has done alright in terms of downloads, but when you consider how many fans there actually are, maybe the numbers don't mean what I think they mean. At free-ebooks.net my Trek fiction has totaled, all together, over a 150k of downloads, and if i could have had a dollar for every download, I could have easily paid off my student loans. At one time, before the 2008 reboot came out, someone had put my stories on amazon kindle. It took six months to get amazon to take it down. it's back up. I suspect some of stuff was used in the 2008 reboot. JJ said in forbes they read fanfiction to get an idea. My first book, "Star Trek: a Touch of Greatness" published online in 2004, was awful. It's the most popular of the books, though. It had the first free-fall/transporter rescue. Mine was more technical than the one JJ did, and in a way I think more dramatic than Chekov running down to the transporter room, but hey, it looked just like I imagined!
You might think I am perturbed that it seems like some of my stuff was used. A little. I do want to grow and be recognized for my writing. A part of me is satisfied, yes- Maybe Ihave what it takes and I just need to keep writing until I master this. At the time, though, i wasn't writing to be famous. I was doing a form of narrative therapy, and simply writing from my greatest position of strength, the Star Trek Universe. I put myself in that 'verse and tried to script out a narrative that wold be meaningful and help me grow as a person.
That worked! I actually healed from past traumas.
Interestingly, that leads me to today, when a friend at work said, "Do you watch Black Mirror?" Why, no, I don't. "You need to check out the 4th season episode entitled, "the USS Callister."
I checked it out.
How dare they write about my life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgTtyfgzGc0
Now, the preview looks fun, but it's actually quite dark. Oh, hence the name Black Mirror!
https://digg.com/video/black-mirror-uss-callister
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjPmG-cWZCQ
So, the question is raises for me. What if this is not just about the power of someone putting others into their computer game? What is just having thoughts of others is sufficient to be exercising power over them? What if every day dream, every fantasy, every dream you ever had was just as real as this universe, or a gaming universe? What if we are gods all the time? What if that's why we incarnate into human bodies, a cradle of sort, to experience limitations while we learn control?
On another note, once you know who the antagonist is in this episode, what role do the co-workers have in creating the monster? Do they allow the antagonist opportunities to be more open? Doesn't ridicule create fear and animosity? Think back to school years. If you weren't bullied, you can probably imagine someone who was bullied. I can make arguments that sometimes the one being bullied elicited the behavior towards them. Maybe not consciously, and maybe not a 100 percent of the time. I was often the new kid. I got bullied. I see it as a way of the established folks testing my merit. I also remember ducking some of it- 'oh, you think I am fat look at that kid over there.' Not a great way of doing that, but it was a solution. It worked more often than not. It wasn't until I learned courage that I took it on more directly. But would I have learned courage if I wasn't challenged?
I don't know. I find this Black Mirror episode to be intriguing and meaningful in many ways, and hope to learn more from it as I watch it again.
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