Trek trivia detail items -- do you know these?

It was Gerrold who came up with it at conventions, at least according to him in an interview here: http://www.startrekanimated.com/tas_david_gerrold.html

 

^That sounds a bit questionable, given what a huge coincidence it would be that the main character of Roddenberry's The Lieutenant also had Tiberius as his middle name. And it would hardly be the first time that someone's taken credit for inventing something that was really someone else's idea. (I've heard several people, including Doctor Who's co-creator Sydney Newman and its original star William Hartnell, take credit for the idea that the Doctor could regenerate and thus be recast with a different actor.) Heck, Gerrold himself starts that reminiscence with "I think," so he's acknowledging that he's not entirely sure it happened that way.

 

I've heard this as well. And the James R Kirk tombstone would have been James Rice Kirk. And then there's Paul Rice, who we saw as a simulation in Arsenal of Freedom.

 

Sulu crashed one in the Enterprise's shuttlebay in ST5.

 

In the 1980s I created a story concept for a dreadnought-style starship that was frozen in time for centuries, and finally emerged to be the light of freedom to an oppressed galaxy.

In 2000 I turned on my TV and did a major double-take.

I had never gotten around to writing the story, though.

 

Was it Bill Blackburn who did the close up?

 

Though wasn't Miles O'Brien the science reporter on CNN? Not an engineer, certainly, but it was pretty close.

It does happen that authors use the names of people they know from time to time, however. For instance, several people I know have characters named for them in Robert J. Sawyer's novels - one that comes immediately to mind is the character of Dr. Lloyd Penney, the forensic scientist in Illegal Alien. The character is named and modelled after a Toronto fan and convention runner. The alien Hollus in Calculating God is named for Peter Halasz, another Toronto-area fan and the driving force behind the Sunburst Awards for Canadian science fiction literature. I think there's also a Raymond Alexander in one of Rob's books - Ray is another long-time Toronto fan and convention runner. And I'm a character in the Tanya Huff novel The Better Part of Valor (the fighter pilot, Lieutenant Commander Sibley - though why Tanya made me a fighter pilot, I'm not sure, because I don't even have a driver's license). Tanya even gave me the choice of whether or not my character would survive the book. (You'll have to read it to find out. )

Usually, it's done because the author wants to honour a friend. In my case, I actually won the character in a charity auction at a convention - I got into a bidding war with Peter Halasz, in fact. And just last weekend, Julie Czerneda donated naming rights to a character in an upcoming novel for the charity auction at the Constellation Awards ceremony.

 

Whatever topic he reported on, a reporter is still not an engineer.

 

Bookend trivia: Kirk's physical In the 1st regular episode ("The Corbomite Maneuver") gets a near identical replay in the last regualar episode ("Turnabout Intruder").



Note: this is mentioned in Memory Alpha's entry on "Turnabout Intruder."

 

Sickbay was remodeled a bit, eh?

 

Yes--cabinet replaced by a doorway. I'm not sure if the change occured in S2, or 3.

 

I always thought that was deliberate: a Vulcan incense dispenser meant to enliven the background of the set. And I was impressed that such an extra effort would be put into set decoration. Now I suppose I was wrong.