Trek Fail!

By Robert Jeschonek

Award-winning author Robert T. Jeschonek knows his Star Trek. Now he invites you to explore the vast realm of published and unpublished Trek. Can you guess which pitches or proposals deserved a FAIL? Which ones scored an UNFAIL? You be the judge in this book that's also a game. Compare your verdict to history's outcome as you voyage through one man's personal Trek universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Jeschonek
• Release date: Dec 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458159908

Book preview

Trek Fail

TREK FAIL

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Blastoff Books

TREK FAIL

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

www.thefictioneer.com

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

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Published by Blastoff Books

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CONTENTS

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Introduction

Impulse Speed: Fan Fiction

Warp 1: Teleplays

Warp 2: Strange New Worlds

Warp 3: Whatever You, Don’t Read This Story

The Secret Heart of Zolaluz

Warp 4: The Shoulders of Giants

Madborg

Dutch Data of the USS ÜberEnterprise?

Sticks and Stones

Number One, The Novel

Redjac: Soul of the Ripper

New Frontier

Easy as S.C.E.

Hearts of Darkness

Green Blood

Dem Bones

K'ehleyr's War

Voyager: Distant Shores

S.C.E.: The Cleanup

S.C.E.: Double Vision

Website Wonderland

Startrek.com: 40 Days and 40 Nights

Constellations

Citizens of the Universe

Kzinti Encounters

The Sky's The Limit

Star Trek: The Manga

Seven Stars

The Final Frontier?

About the Author

Special Preview: Universal Language

ALSO BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

A Grain from a Balance: A Trek Screenplay

Sticks and Stones: A Trek Novel

Trek This

Trek You

Trek Off!

Vendetta: A Trek Screenplay

INTRODUCTION

Have you read the Star Trek novel that tells the story of Redjac's eternal battle with immortal Flint from Requiem for Methuselah? What about the comic book story that takes Pavel Chekov to the Soviet planet Soyuz II, where he meets the ghost of Yuri Gagarin? Did you see the episode of Voyager that features Tuvok facing pon farr while the crew battles an alien who dies in the first act but keeps coming back for more? How about the weekly web serial bringing together a team of time-travelers including Tasha Yar, K'Ehleyr, and a humanoid avatar of the Guardian of Forever?

These are just a few of the Star Trek projects that I've developed and pitched to book editors and website producers through the years. Some were fails, epic and otherwise, and some were not.

This book will explore these many Trek pitches and proposals. As you read them, see if you can guess whether they went on to become FAILS or UNFAILS. After each one, I'll give you the answer and tell you the true story behind the story. In doing so, I'll open a window on my Trek writing career and give you a look at my creative process. Why do some ideas win contests while others become epic fails? This book will give you some insight, and some glimpses of fascinating Star Trek worlds that never were. You can't read about them anywhere else but here.

Looking back at my Trek writing career provides tantalizing glimpses of projects that could have been, along with the ones that did come to life. Would the unrealized adventures of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and company have shone brightly as worthy additions to the Star Trek saga on film, online, and in print? Or did these fails spare us from tales that wouldn't have measured up to the ones that made the cut? You be the judge.

IMPULSE SPEED: FAN FICTION

My introduction to the world of Star Trek was the reverse of the usual route. My love of Trek started with the printed page instead of the T.V. screen. As a child in the 1970s, I was hooked on the adaptations of the original series episodes written by James Blish and the animated episodes by Alan Dean Foster. After getting into the books, I watched syndicated episodes of the original series, which truly blew my mind and hooked me for good.

After becoming addicted to Trek through the print novelizations, I flipped when Bantam began issuing original novels and anthologies based on the series. Though these novels and anthologies were few and far between, I eagerly snatched up and devoured every one of them. Because of those books, starting with Spock Must Die and Star Trek: The New Voyages, I first got the idea that I might someday be able to write my own original stories about Trek. I remember fantasizing often about walking into the local bookstore and seeing my name on the spine of a Star Trek book on the shelf.

Eventually, I took the fantasy a step further and wrote Trek fan fiction. This early work was far from perfect, but it did feature some interesting ideas. For example, my unfinished novel, Beyond the Final Barrier, features an alliance between the Federation and the crystalline Tholians. Working together, the Federation and Tholians plan an excursion to another galaxy...at least until the Tholians' irredeemably evil sister species, the Yumerians, launch a blitzkrieg attack.

Another project centers around a killer Vulcan suffering from a disease that drives his emotions out of control. A mission to stop him turns deadly when a human bounty hunter who hates Vulcans--or Points--comes gunning for Mister Spock.

Then there's The Sacrifice, in which the Enterprise crew encounters a Klingon ambassador and his assistant, K'Vill Kirzz, an actual good-hearted Klingon. K'Vill came along years before DC Comics' friendly Klingon Konom and Star Trek: The Next Generation's Worf...though K'Vill never did see print. Maybe, in an alternate universe where The Sacrifice was published, he made history as the first Klingon good guy in Star Trek.

WARP 1: TELEPLAYS

For a true Trek fan like me, the movies were pure Nirvana. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was like a religious experience; I basked in every frame like it was a revelation from God Himself (or was that V'Ger, the God Machine). Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was equally wondrous for different reasons; the film's emotional power, culminating in the death of Spock, left me reeling (and brought me back for multiple viewings).

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was almost as strong, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was just plain funny and exciting. Each new movie added fuel to the fire of my love for Star Trek and my desire to become a part of it someday as a writer.

Then came Star Trek: The Next Generation, a TV sequel that brought new weekly adventures to the small screen. Preceded by bad buzz, the show started out shaky...then went on to become a worthy successor to the original series. Led by Gene Roddenberry himself, the creative team had an impressive grasp of what made the Trek universe great and how to reproduce it with a brand new crew. Best of all, as I soon discovered, they would consider unsolicited script submissions. If accompanied by a signed release, scripts would actually be reviewed and considered without the need for a high-powered Hollywood agent.

It boggled my mind. If I wrote a Star Trek: The Next Generation script, and the producers liked it, my script could become an actual episode of the show! How could I pass up such an amazing opportunity?

After studying various sample scripts from the show, I sat down and wrote my own, called A Grain From A Balance. Take a look at the summary and see if you can guess what happened. Was A Grain From A Balance a fail or an unfail?

Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Grain From A Balance

FAIL or UNFAIL?

The story begins with Data, whose nose grows Pinocchio-style when he tells a lie. The growth is caused by two travelers from a subatomic universe who are passing through on the way to a higher level of reality. The travelers, One and Two, try to persuade members of the crew to join their quest...but they just want to drain the crew's life-energy to fuel their travel. In the end, the Enterprise crew thwart the travelers' plan, preventing them from ascending to the next level. But the journey continues when One sacrifices himself to give Two the energy she needs to travel onward and find the ultimate answers to the nature of existence.

The title comes from a verse in the Book of Wisdom in the Bible: Before you, the whole universe is as a grain from a balance or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth. I thought it was the perfect quote from which to draw a title for an episode about the grandeur and immensity of infinity.

FAIL CALL: A Grain From a Balance - FAIL or UNFAIL?

FAIL! How cool it would have been if A Grain From A Balance had become an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unfortunately, the script became an epic fail because I made one simple mistake: I never mailed it.

I finished it and polished it, but I never believed in it enough to send it to the producers. And that's too bad, because I've looked at it since then, and I think it could have sold. Or at least generated enough interest to inspire the producers to call me in for a pitch session. But now I'll never know.

Thankfully, though, I went on to learn from that mistake and became more courageous about mailing what I wrote. In fact, I made another run at writing a Trek script, and this time, I did submit it to the producers.

The script, Vendetta, is a Voyager tale focusing on the crew's struggle with an opponent who dies but keeps returning to fight again. The story also addresses the question of what a Vulcan aboard Voyager would do when pon farr, the irresistible and destructive mating drive, kicks into gear while the ship is still stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

Check out the following summary and see what you think happened to this project.

Star Trek: Voyager: Vendetta - FAIL or UNFAIL?

Alien Klashar Zule attacks Voyager, accusing the crew of taking everything he holds dear. He says they've battled twice before, though the crew has no memory of this. After Klashar dies in the fight, Voyager pursues a stolen shuttle piloted by Tuvok, who is undergoing pon farr and has kidnapped B'Elanna. The shuttle crashes on an alien world. Voyager meets and defeats Klashar twice more, and each time, he remembers nothing of their previous encounter. This is because Klashar is moving back through time; their first meeting was the last from his point of view. On the planet's surface, Tuvok tries to relieve the pon farr by mating with B'Elanna but doesn't go through with it. Instead, he goes on a rampage and destroys some pods which turn out to contain Klashar's hibernating family. Voyager's crew was unable to prevent this tragedy, which sets in motion Klashar's time-travel attacks. In the end, Tuvok dissipates the pon farr by using an image of his wife on Voyager's holodeck.

Vendetta was a fun script to write and a stronger effort across the board than A Grain from a Balance. I had high hopes as I printed it up and submitted it to the producers of Voyager. Maybe, just maybe, I could fulfill my dream in the most exciting way imaginable, by having my script become the basis of a televised episode.

FAIL CALL: Star Trek: Voyager: Vendetta - FAIL or UNFAIL?

FAIL! Vendetta was received and considered by the Voyager team but did not make the cut. Once again, my stab at Star Trek had become an epic fail.

Nevertheless, I still think the script was a solid effort and would have made a great episode. One story element, in fact, predicted a plot twist in a later episode of the show. In the seventh season episode Body and Soul, Tuvok undergoes pon farr while stranded in the Delta Quadrant and relieves it the same way he did in Vendetta, by using the ship's holodeck.

I must have been doing something right if I was thinking along the same lines as the show's writers. Maybe I was getting closer to my first big break in the world of Star Trek after all.

WARP 2: STRANGE NEW WORLDS

In the late 1990s, I found out about the perfect opportunity for a wannabe Star Trek writer like me. Pocket Books, publisher of official Trek fiction, sponsored the nationwide Strange New Worlds contest. Amateur writers could submit short Trek stories which would be judged by editors John Ordover, Dean Wesley Smith, and Paula Block. The winning stories would be published in a Pocket Books collection titled--wait for it--Strange New Worlds.

Maybe I'd dropped the ball by not mailing my Next Generation script, but I wasn't about to miss out on Strange New Worlds. Finally, I had an opportunity to make my Trek writing dream come true beyond the fan fiction realm.

After reading about the first volume of SNW in an issue of Star Trek Communicator magazine, I cranked out a Harry Mudd/Grand Nagus Zek piece titled When Harry Met Zekky and submitted it to the editors. I had a ball bringing these two characters together and letting the sparks fly.

When Harry Met Zekky - FAIL or UNFAIL?

In When Harry Met Zekky, hew-mon Harry Mudd and Ferengi Zek (a DaiMon at the time) try to out-con each other in order to plunder a fabulously wealthy and (seemingly) naïve species, the Forbosians. Harry uses his silver tongue to win over the Forbosians and threatens to unleash their invasion fleet on Zek's homeworld if he doesn't pay a king's ransom. Zek turns the tables, but the Forbosians have a surprise in store; they've been planning all along to invade both Earth and Ferenginar. In the end, Harry the master con man wins the day, not only ending the invasion threat but obtaining a payoff of incalculable wealth.

Zek's admiration knows no bounds...but his ambition is even greater. He decides to double-cross Harry and take the whole prize for himself: Thanks to his brilliant work with Harry Mudd, Zek knew that his name would be known and honored by every Ferengi. He had made the big score he'd been looking for, the biggest. It was the kind of history-making swindle that made DaiMons into heroes...and, sometimes, heroes into Grand Naguses. It was hard to believe. Even now, with the prize laid out before him, it seemed like a dream. Not only had he convinced the richest beings in the quadrant to give him all their wealth, but they were paying him to take it away! It was a masterpiece of chicanery, a stroke of genius...and he was still so young! He was amazed that he had pulled it off! Well, he and Harry Mudd had pulled it off. Harry Mudd. Soon to be known as 'old what's-his-name.' So Zek takes the money and runs, leaving Harry selling makeup to a certain pasty-faced alien species who could use a little color: the Borg.

FAIL CALL: When Harry Met Zekky - FAIL or UNFAIL?

FAIL! In spite of what I still think is a great title, When Harry Met Zekky did not make the cut for Strange New Worlds. I was devastated...but the letdown didn't last long. Soon enough, Pocket Books announced a Strange New Worlds II contest for the following year. Determined to succeed this time, I sat down and wrote a second story titled Ilia's Gift.

This one is a tribute to the Star Trek II TV series that was developed in the 1970s for a proposed Paramount network that failed to come together at the time. Though the show never saw the light of day, several characters created for it were incorporated into Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Commander Will Decker and bald Deltan navigator Lieutenant Ilia played major roles in the movie; Vulcan first officer Xon was only given a cameo, appearing briefly when his body was turned inside-out in a transporter accident onboard the refurbished Enterprise.

I liked to think about these three characters and what Star Trek II would have been like, so I made them the stars of the story. In Ilia's Gift, I visit their alternate reality and offer an explanation of why their adventures never materialized as they should have. I also answer one of the questions that always nagged at me about Trek: in a universe where time travel exists, why hasn't a hostile species simply gone back in time and eliminated the Federation? (I wrote this story before the film Star Trek: First Contact, in which the Borg attempted just such a strategy.)

Ilia's Gift – FAIL or UNFAIL?

Ilia's Gift follows the last adventure of Star Trek II's Decker, Ilia, and Xon. The story opens years after the start of the second mission of the Enterprise: If the first five-year mission had been a wild ride, the second--Ilia's tour--had been the wildest ride ever. She, Decker, and Xon, new kids at the start of the second five years, now were toughened, cagey vets of the interstellar frontier.

While investigating a temporal disturbance, the Enterprise team discovers that the Romulans have used time machines to send back an invasion force to attack Earth before the Federation can be born. Decker, Ilia, and Xon follow the Romulans into the past to try to stop them, only to learn that the timeline has already been changed. A Romulan-Earth War which was never meant to happen has broken out and could lead to the subjugation of humanity.

Ultimately, the Enterprise trio disrupt the invasion enough to ensure an Earth victory...but only Xon makes it back to the future after the fight. He arrives twenty years before he left and discovers he is literally a man out of time. The timeline as he knew it has been drastically altered; in this new history, Xon was never born. He is a living paradox without a home, so he creates a new destiny for himself. Xon goes to live on Delta, where he serves as the guardian and tutor of an alternate version of one of his beloved teammates--Ilia, reborn in this timeline with a fresh start. In the end, Xon gives her what will be a cherished gift: he arranges for her to meet the young Will Decker who has also been reborn in this new timeline.

FAIL CALL: Ilia's Gift - FAIL or UNFAIL?

FAIL! I had a lot of fun writing Ilia's Gift, but it didn't make the cut for Strange New Worlds. It did, however, lead to an encouraging note from editor Dean Wesley Smith. Dean's note inspired me to try again with a new story for Strange New Worlds