The Pastel Terror

[JamesSmith]

Larry Nivel wrote a episode that is never produced is called The Pastel Terror. This is about the Enterprise being destroyed first stardrive section then saucer section crashing to the planet. The story is similar to Star Trek: Generations.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Interesting...

http://www.larryniven.org/stories/pastel.shtml

Actually, not that interesting. Yikes. He says he never tried to sell it because it would be too expensive. How about the real reason? It kinda sucks....

Not to mention that "The Pastel Terror" is copyrighted © 1971. Hmmm, a little too late there, Larry...

 

[defconprime]

Wow, that was really awful. The best part is when Kirk convinces Spock he has to seduce many earth women. I'm pretty sure LN must have been joking about this.

 

[Hambone]

"Your job is to seduce as many human women as possible. And you've barely started!"

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

The Pastel Terror... for a moment I thought that this was a thread on the color palette for TMP.

 

[Therin of Andor]

JamesSmith said:
Larry Nivel wrote a episode that is never produced is called The Pastel Terror.

Notice that it is "reprinted from Apa-L", which I assume is like other APAs (Amateur Press Association), a style of fanzine where all invitation-only contributors send off a few pages each issue to a chief compiler, who then packages and posts the finished volume to everyone in the APA.

Larry has a reputation for writing humorous articles which take on notoriety, one of his best being "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", about the sexual functions of Superboy/Superman and how Lois Lane might survive to conceive and give birth to a half Kryptonian child.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

ssosmcin said:

Not to mention that "The Pastel Terror" is copyrighted © 1971. Hmmm, a little too late there, Larry...

Actually, you'll note that Niven says he wrote it sometime around the second or third season.

Sir Rhosis

 

[Kryton]

"The Pastel Terror" sounds like K/S slash fiction by that title.

SPOCK: Oh my GOD, Jim...those colors are putrid! What were you thinking?!?

KIRK: Look, I graduated from the Academy interior decorating class with TOP honors, honey...mee-OW, beyotch!

 

[Ssosmcin]

I stand by my lack of attention and profound ignorance.

 

[Outpost4]

Therin of Andor said:
Larry has a reputation for writing humorous articles which take on notoriety, one of his best being "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", about the sexual functions of Superboy/Superman and how Lois Lane might survive to conceive and give birth to a half Kryptonian child.

I went through a Larry Niven period and I remember that story well. Here it is. I'll have to check out The Pastel Terror when I get a chance. Thanks for the link, ssosmcin.

 

[Bones]

Well if this had been produced:

• we would have yet another "worst TOS" episode to vote for
• we would be endlessly entertained by the purists' ranting about TOSR ruining the artistic integrity of the Pastel Terror completely engulfing the Enterprise, and moaning about an extra detail shot of the saucer separating while Kirk is passed out in Sickbay vs the original shot of the engineerng section simply trailing away.

I agree with the poster who said this reads like some bad K/S fanfic.

 

[Maurice]

Well, that was really horrible. The story wasn't about anything.

 

[Jon1701]

I quite like the stone skipping across water bit.

Thats about it. The destruction of the Enterprise was rather pointless.

Not sure what they would have done next week. Not sure they would have been able to afford next week.

 

[gastrof]

The guy's apparently VERY familiar with TREK.*

I do so wish his story had been used on TOS!

*I've looked at the thing for about a minute, and already found THREE uses of the term "teleport" or "teleporter", rather than "beam down" and "transporter". Yes. Always good when a writer knows the show he's writing for.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It probably would have been somewhat rewritten (although in Season 3, it wouldn't have been a very extensive re-write). Thank God for budget problems, since they were desperate for epsides by then.

 

[Therin of Andor]

gastrof said:
already found THREE uses of the term "teleport" or "teleporter", rather than "beam down" and "transporter". Yes. Always good when a writer knows the show he's writing for.[/i]

When Roddenberry started gathering scripts and pitches for ST, he canvassed entries from lots of published SF authors, and many were submitted before too many episodes had even even been aired.

Niven had probably had lots of short stories in pro mags but bookwise had only produced "The World of Ptavvs" (1966), "A Gift from Earth" (1968), "Neutron Star" (1968) and "The Shape of Space" (1969). But I don't think "The Pastel Terror" was meant to be a serious pitch.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

That was really, really, really bad. And I mean... really.