Help finding a short anecdote from a novel

[Sci]

Hey folks,

I'm hoping the groupmind can help me out here.

I could swear that I remember there being a short anecdote in a Star Trek novel about an alien world that chose not to develop space technology, was unable to detect an impending extinction-level event that they might have averted if they had developed space technology, and ended up going extinct but leaving their records behind. In my memory, the anecdote concludes by asserting that this planet's fate was a story everyone learned in the Federation, as an exhortation not to put short-term interests ahead of long-term thinking.

I could have sworn I read this anecdote in The Return by William Shatner (aka, really by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens) way back when I was a kid in the mid-90s, but I pulled out my old copy and wasn't able to find the passage. Is my memory lying to me? Is this perhaps in a different Reeves-Stevens or different Shatnerverse novel? Or a different Star Trek novel altogether?

Thanks!

 

[Therin of Andor]

Reminds me of a Peter David anecdote, actually.

The Return by William Shatner (aka, really by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens)

Shatner narrated his story synopses - and all of Kirk's lines (and action sequences) - into a dictaphone, which was then transcribed into manuscript by a secretary, then edited by him, then handed over to the Reeves-Stevenses for their embellishments and added Trek knowledge, then back to Shatner. So, not ghostwritten.

 

[Sci]

Reminds me of a Peter David anecdote, actually.

Do you remember what book?

Shatner narrated his story synopses - and all of Kirk's lines (and action sequences) - into a dictaphone, which was then transcribed into manuscript by a secretary, then edited by him, then handed over to the Reeves-Stevenses for their embellishments and added Trek knowledge, then back to Shatner. So, not ghostwritten.

I don't want this to take over the thread, but suffice it to say I am aware of how Shatner operated with the Reeves-Stevenses and I still disagree with how authorial credit was characterized.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

It rings a bell with me, too, but I'm not sure what bell it rings. Could it possibly be SCE? (if it is, and it is something I've read, then it would have to be an SCE novella that actually made it into print.)

 

[Sci]

It rings a bell with me, too, but I'm not sure what bell it rings. Could it possibly be SCE? (if it is, and it is something I've read, then it would have to be an SCE novella that actually made it into print.)

I'm almost certain this was from a physical book I read some time in the 1990s. (The memory isn't clear because I would have been between 10-13 at the time.)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Sounds like Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star"...

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I feel like that's in David Gerrold's The Galactic Whirlpool, which has all sorts of asides like that. Possibly near the scene with Specs, Gerrold's own personal Mary Sue.

 

[JD]

It rings a bell with me, too, but I'm not sure what bell it rings. Could it possibly be SCE? (if it is, and it is something I've read, then it would have to be an SCE novella that actually made it into print.)

If it was it wasn't in the first 6 books, I just read those over the last few months and I don't recognize the story.