The Internet, for readers with have a morbid fear of any technology more recent than the quill pen, is a network of 20,000 computer networks. On the net you can find a few thousand "news- groups", where people leave each other electronic messages on subjects ranging from the row over cold fusion (which is still simmering, rather more vigorously than the experiments are) to... Star Trek and much, much weirder things. The net is so odd, and so placeless, that it wouldn't particularly surprise anyone to see messages from "kirk@enterprise.mil".

How do the real fans who discuss Star Trek (henceforth ST) so avidly on the Internet see it? I took the discussion in just one of the ST news-groups on one day (May 6) : 200 messages from 134 people, 84 of them at universities (8 in the UK). Twelve of the 94 writers whose gender was apparent were women -- a higher proportion than in many other net discussions. I managed to send questions to 132 -- and received answers from an astonishing 68.

Many replied that ST was just part of their environment: "I've always been a SF fan, as far back as I can remember..." "when I was a pimply teen..." "since I was five years old." Dozens referred to "superlative acting" and so on -- but then fans would, wouldn't they?

In the UK also, ST is deeply embedded in the culture. It garnered 1299 mentions in UK broadsheet newspaper articles in the ten years to the beginning of May. The catch-phrase "beam me up" was used 126 times: Daily Mail, 04 Mar 94 "Party raid police 'sorry'"; Today TV Talk, 20 Nov 93 "The judge enjoys making whoopi"... the imagination boggles so well that it'd be a shame to read the actual stories.

The character Captain Kirk was mentioned 239 times, 16 in April alone (unless the database is throwing up a real Captain Kirk?). My bosom buddy Mr Spock merited, illogically, only 163 mentions. This probably says more about journalists than about ST fans (or "fen", as the more anorakky construct the plural). After all, the basic plot of an ST original series episode concerns the necessity of human individualism, anger, irrationality, aggression and (just sometimes) gentler emotions to solving the problems of the Universe: Spock can be taken as a representative of the planned economy, always shown inadequate by Kirk's capitalist paragon.

The fans' striking common theme, though, was that ST "provides a utopian view of our advancement as a species and a civilisation," in the words of Guy Lambert, an undergraduate at the University of Kent. "The idea of a future where mankind is at last at peace with one another, where barriers of race and gender have been eradicated, is," he says, "not only a hopeful idea, but one which we can all try to create."

Jeremy Pace, a computer science student, is attracted by "The possibility of some of the technology coming true, of today's problems being solved." Richard Rose, a grad student and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, is attracted by "A futuristic society in which mankind has become the linchpin in a galactic federation -- You have to ask?" In all, 22 responded along these lines.

Ann Williams (a.k.a. "The Pizza Slayer"), circulation supervisor in the Saint Joseph College library, finds "insight into the human condition (via aliens and androids who function as outsiders) and a platform for examining political and ethical issues in a less threatening manner," and says that ST "treats the quest for scientific knowledge with respect and wonderment." Many have a more cultural interest. Susan Eisenhour, Library Technical Assistant at Eastern Illinois University, says she's attracted to ST's "Positive view of the future -- well, no. To be really honest, it has interesting characters and stories told in a setting I find fascinating: the future."

Paul Yerkey, a graduate student of psychology, says ST "only appears to be a science fiction show. It is really a show about the human condition." Janis Maria Cortese, writing from the "graveyard shift" at a high-energy physics facility, is attracted by "The idea of so many different cultures and languages available to me to learn about. I'm a glutton for languages and love historical linguistics. The idea of being able to study that much is like a buffet dinner!" (Have been known to discuss linguist-fen ST, fluent Klingon in. Engineer-fen publish maintenance manuals for the Enterprise. Budding-writer-fen contribute their own scripts. And so on...)

"The current ST (The Next Generation) is good escapism at the end of a long day. I don't take it too seriously and, in fact, enjoy its frequent bloopers in science." says Rudolf Schmid, Professor of Botany at the University of California, Berkeley. And Lloyd Parker, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Emory University, finds it "Hard to say" what's attractive about ST: "the science and technology, the stories, the characters..." -- but he says he posts messages, for whatever reason, most days.

I don't have any guarantee that these people are who they say they are. That's typical of the net. It seems remarkably reminiscent, too, of a recurring Star Trek plot: characters find their perceptions of the world seriously at variance with all their comrades', and have reason to doubt their sanity. They always turn out to be sane and genuinely conspired against. In a world beset by future shock, the students and researchers who are creating tomorrow's shocks must find ST similarly reassuring.

Computer science PhD candidate Raoul Daruwala refers to the "scientific spirit which allows characters to come up with a novel solution to every technical problem, despite the usual caveat 'Captain, it might be risky'." He calls the show "a morality play for the age of science," and he has a point.

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Written
25 May 1994

This version is © copyright 1994 Mike Holderness; moral rights are asserted.

Just one of those strange commissions that editors dream up. Don't mail me with ST questions. Almost all I know is here. In May 1994, it was still necessary to explain the concept "internet" to UK academics? It seems so.