Pam Blackstone
Burning Trekkie Question
Did they or didnt they? That had to be the question
on the minds of trekkies everywhere on watching Monday
nights episode of Star Trek Voyager. Captain Janeway
and Chakotay are reluctantly left behind by the Voyager
crew on a seemingly idyllic planet after contracting
a deadly illness. For some strange reason, the planets
biosphere shields them from the debilitating effects
of the disease, and the pair go about the process of
building a new life in this apparent paradise. The
show deals with the growing friendship and affection
and the developing sexual attraction between the
two. The Star Trek producers finally seem serious about
character development. A freak plasma storm brings
out Chakotays protective feelings towards Janeway,
whom he has begun to call Catherine. She displays a
vulnerability that is rarely seen and totally out of
character, in allowing him to shield her protectively
from flying debris.
This episode builds, with delicious anticipation, towards
a climactic intimate moment between Janeway and Chakotay,
but cuts away at the crucial moment. The two subsequently
get rescued and, of course, a cure is found. But the
producers have exercised a devious and inventive cruelty,
leaving those of us with an addiction to this show
dangling on the hook of uncertainty. Did they or didnt
they? I had to find out, so I turned to the alt.tv.star-trek.voyager
newsgroup to see what other trekkies thought.
Debate was raging in this newsgroup, all right, but
about the previous episode in which Janeway had had
to make a very tough decision which some were equating
with the capital punishment dilemma. Curious, I did
a quick search to see where else there might be Voyager
discussions. After scrolling through a list of search
hits as long as my arm, I began to realize Star Trek
is literally all over the Net.
This impression that trekkies dominate the Net was confirmed
yesterday by some statistics from the Infoseek search
engine published in the latest edition of Web Week
magazine. According to Infoseek, Star Trek is the third
most common phrase searched. In case youre interested,
Chat rooms and USA Today are the first two. And no,
the most common keyword searched isnt sex its music,
followed by software, games, Windows, college, news,
free, and jobs, in that order. The most common name
searched? Not surprisingly, Pamela Anderson flies off
the fingers of more people than any other name.
However, back to Star Trek. (Sorry, Pam Anderson fans.)
For all you fellow trekkies who have been longing for
online Star Trek resources, here are a few links to
get you started: the official Star Trek web site is
at http://www.paramount.com/. Here, you can download
audio or video clips, read up on the characters, and
bone up on past and upcoming episodes. Fellow Voyager
fans wont want to miss the Star Trek Voyager page (http://www.bradley.edu/campusorg/psiphi/voy/).
If you want to go on record with your favourite Star
Trek character, alien race, or film, check out the
Star Trek Vote site (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Carl_Plage/vote.htm).
The Klingon Language Institute (http://www.kli.org/)
has been mentioned in this space before, and deserves
a visit. If youre into aliens, there are web sites
(and newsgroups) dedicated to most Star Trek alien
races, as well as to favourite characters. Just try
a search on the name of the character, actor, or alien
race. The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, for example,
may be found at http://www.cs.odu.edu/~baker/rules.html.
The Vidiot site (http://www.bradley.edu/campusorg/psiphi/voy/)
is a popular starting point for exploring online Star
Trek resources, as is the Select Star Trek Site Guide,
found at http://www.research.umbc.edu/~smith/startrek/startrek.html.
An excellent collection of links may be found at http://www.halcyon.com/dyar/starfleet/resource.html.
Chris Gilliams Star Trek Page (http://www.aztec.co.za/users/cgilliam/star.html)
is another wonderful jumplist that will keep you busy
for weeks. Ditto for the Definitive Star Trek Collection
(http://www.execpc.com/~lam/startrek.html), an extensive
jumplist containing not only Web sites, but Gopher,
Telnet, and FTP resources, as well as a far more extensive
list of newsgroups than I could reprint here.
In fact, there are dozens of Star Trek discussion forums,
including the TREK-REVIEW-L mailing list ([email protected]
to subscribe), and the alt.startrek.creative, alt.startrek.klingon,
rec.arts.startrek.current, rec.arts.startrek.fandom,
rec.arts.startrek.info, rec.arts.startrek.misc, rec.arts.startrek.reviews,
and rec.arts.startrek.tech newsgroups. If this isnt
enough for you, youre in worse shape than I am! Live
long and prosper.
Pam Blackstone is a Canadian Internet consultant who
writes a weekly column about the Internet for the Victoria
Times-Colonist newspaper. You can reach Pam by e-mail
at [email protected].
Copyright © 1996 Pam Blackstone. All rights reserved.
Reprinted here with permission.