The Writing of Star Trek Hunter
Way back in the 20th Century, when the world was young, I would sit down with my father and watch reruns of the original Star Trek series on a black & white television. There was color television in those days, but we didn’t get one of those until sometime in the mid-1970’s. And then I got to watch the series again in color, along with the cartoon series, which I never saw all of. We had black & white TV and old 78rpm clay records (we were late to adapt to vinyl 33rpm as well).
But we had books - hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Expensive, full-color encyclopedias of history and art. And tomes of philosophy, science and, more to the point, science fiction. Dozens of well worn paperback sci-fi and fantasy novels. And a four-book set of mixed short stories and essays labeled Sociology Through Science Fiction, which was one of the courses my father taught at OCLA - later USAO. His degree is in anthropology. My mother’s is in art history.
At some point in the late 1970’s I became a Dungeon Master - a sought-after one in college. My players and I developed massive adventure stories, especially the Underground Kingdom of Livingstone and the Rock Bay Blood Festival. I’m not sure when D&D dropped out of my life - some point between my short attempt at being an English teacher and my brief career in television journalism.
But I eventually turned a number of those D&D adventures into short stories and published a collection of them in 1998. And then I stopped writing for a few decades. Well… fiction. I’ve written well over 200 songs and I’ve been writing grants and contracts for a living for nearly 30 years.
A few years ago, I started fantasizing about what it would be like for a colony of humans to live inside a gigantic mushroom. Just something to think about when work was slow. And that was the genesis of Star Trek Hunter. Gradually, that world came into focus. I knew what it looked like, but there was no story to tell about it. But I told my dad about it. And he said something like, “if you want to make it interesting, make it creepy - tell a story about premonitions.”
Instead of creepy, I went for silly… Okay - so this gigantic mushroom gives people premonitions. What do they do with them? They try to win at cards. But how does that help when everyone else at the card table also has precognition? But people will find a way to cheat and one way is patents. This eventually became Episode 7 - The Great Mushroom.
I had fallen in love with Michelle Yeoh when she co-starred as the ultimate Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies, and she quickly became the captain of the U.S.S. Hunter. But I wanted her to adjudicate the case of the Great Mushroom, so I made her a judge as well.
Kenny Dolphin was partly inspired by actor Simon Baker (Patrick Jane in The Mentalist) and partly by philosopher and divisive firebrand Dr. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith.
I have never before managed anything more than short stories - certainly nothing as massive as the Star Trek Hunter series. And I didn’t really set out to write a series - just a few short stories. But the ideas just kept coming and the short stories started to link together into a cohesive chain.
My octogenarian parents became my beta-readers and I didn’t publish any of the story until I had the first 10 episodes written - a year of story time. I decided at that point that the story would end with Year 3. Then I just wrote down the names of the episodes for years 2 and 3. Most of those episode names stayed pretty much the same. I had no idea what the stories would be.
I didn’t know that Episode 12: Prisoner in the Ice Castle would become the story of succession of the Andorian Empire until I had the first three scenes written. No clue what the 15,000 Cities of Cun Ling were all about until I hit on the idea that one of the cities would be Ba Sing Se from the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender.
But I did know what the Sword of Destiny was. I knew the sword - but not what story would be generated around it. (Sword of Destiny is Episode 27. Spoiler alert - this is the episode where Sauron’s Orcs show up…)
I’m glad I didn’t start publishing until I had nearly a third of the story written. It was only at this point that the ending started to coalesce in my mind and I had to go back and re-write the whole thing backwards.
In re-publishing the series on the Trek BBS, I’m taking the opportunity to just clean up a few annoying grammar issues I didn’t realize I had until writing this tome - especially my tendency to omit the closing commas for appositives and to answer dashes with commas instead of dashes.
It has also given me the opportunity to go back and sew up a few plotholes. I knew why the Trillian Master Force couldn’t see through the fog, but I really didn’t tell the reader that… and ended up getting a few questions about why fog was such a problem for a military somewhat more advanced than the U.S. Army. (It’s specially ionized fog from Vulcan Science Academy weather satellites, designed for cleaning up massive radiation leaks. Opaque to radar and all but the most advanced sensors.)
I also have taken the opportunity to slip in a bit more forecasting. You might notice that before Justice Irons has her stroke, that she’s experiencing increasing discomfort with her neck and constantly massaging herself. I also included several more references to her heavy use of alcohol.
Finally, I have to mention the enormous impact the United Trek writers’ stories had on the Star Trek Hunter series, especially CeJay.
I had initially made my Star Fleet a bit too callous and casual about killing instead of focusing first on non-lethal solutions. CeJay’s stories in particular reminded me that the Federation (and, in fact, the U.S. military) always seek first and extensively to not kill whenever possible and killing truly is, for them, the very last option.
I want to say Thank You to my many readers and especially to the many who have left comments that have made me think and re-think the series. They have had more impact than they may realize. (Example: Buttans Ngumbo’s bajoran family name was originally spelled “Buttons” - boy did that raise far too many questions!)
One More Thing: I have to give a nod to Will the Serious, who has given me my first glimpses of the strangely shaped U.S.S. Hunter. I’m hoping he will respond to this posting and post his sketches of the Hunter in this thread. It’s not 100% what the Hunter looks like in my mind’s eye, but they’re gorgeous sketches and accurately convey the idea of a patrol vessel that is far more intimidating than the typical Star Fleet design.
Thanks!! rbs
