We Submitted Two Star Trek Scripts to Paramount in 1997. Nearly 30 Years Later, Here They Are.

[isicjod]

In 1997, Star Trek still allowed ordinary fans to submit speculative scripts to the actual production office. So two IT guys in Edinburgh decided to try.

We wrote one for Deep Space Nine and another for Voyager — in Lotus Ami Pro, on piles of paper, largely thrashed out over pints in the back of an Edinburgh pub.

Both were submitted to Star Trek.

The Voyager rejection came back within a few months.

The DS9 one?

We didn’t get our rejection until several months after Deep Space Nine itself had finished its seventh and final season.

Did anyone ever actually read it? Did it spend years sitting forgotten in a mailbag? Or is there a more interesting story we never knew?

Nearly 30 years later, we’ve decided to open the binders.

The original scripts are DS9: Identity and Voyager: Fickle Finger of Fate.

We think Identity is the better story — but Fickle Finger of Fate is the better-written script because we’d learned from our first attempt.

Now we’d love Star Trek fans to tell us whether we’re right.

Good, bad or brutal — after nearly three decades, our egos can take it.

John O’Donovan & Stuart Liddle — Star Trek Spec Scripts (1997) – Google Drive

drive.google.com

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine_episodes

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_Voyager_episodes

 

[FredH]

True story: During TNG’s original run, I wrote a spec script for it. (I was in college, and thought I was being clever — the plot was centered around something that would preemptively explain why Data would eventually visibly age as Brent Spiner did.). Thing is, PCs weren’t *quite* ubiquitous (or cheap) enough for my parents to get one for not-yet-working me, and what they’d instead gotten me for college use was one of those dedicated word-processors that were around back then that used a “DataDisk” format incompatible with what gradually became standard — and, with a small screen and other issues, took for-frickin-ever to type on, let alone revise, *let alone* arrange text in teleplay format.

So I worked out and finally finished my script — just in time for TNG to present us with Noonien Soong… who was a major presence (in hologram) in my story, with a completely different personality and motivations (let’s just say, not nearly as relatively kind and pleasant as the TV version). So I had to start revising. Taking for-frickin-ever. And that was before the damn thing broke…

As a stopgap measure until I could retype up the whole thing as a new version — introducing a whole new previously-unseen “Soong’s assistant” character to move “my” Soong’s dialogue and motivations onto — I ended up just handwriting increasingly sloppy updates on a printout copy.

With one thing and another, by the time I’d *finally* gotten the new version ready, TNG started approaching its end, and I knew it was too late to submit it.

Finally got a proper computer the following year.

But the long-after coda was that when Data “died” for the final time and seemingly forever in Picard S1 — because after all, Brent Spiner had visibly aged — I more than half-felt that it was all my fault!!, for not getting that script out all those years before.

 

[Mudd]

Dave and I submitted a spec script a couple of years after our two sales, called "Dying of the Light." It was about...Data, of course. Piller said he thought the writing "had merit" and that he might have rewrite work for us. Nothing came of it, and he was probably being polite - but IMO it was awfully nice of him to have looked at it and returned it to our agent with a personal note.

I've probably got a PDF here somewhere.

 

[Will The Serious]

Perhapse we could develop our own universe franchise. Decide on a few unique standards to the future of a united Earth and alien allies & enemies, and convert these stories over to become a collective anthology of characters, ship's, and aliens that would allow any television production company to pick the new series up without worry of copyright issues with past or current sci-fi franchises. We just need to set the stage for an original universe. The Sagittarian Arm Galactic Aliance (S.A.G.A.).

-Will

 

[Kor]

Perhapse we could develop our own universe franchise. Decide on a few unique standards to the future of a united Earth and alien allies & enemies, and convert these stories over to become a collective anthology of characters, ship's, and aliens that would allow any television production company to pick the new series up without worry of copyright issues with past or current sci-fi franchises. We just need to set the stage for an original universe. The Sagittarian Arm Galactic Aliance (S.A.G.A.).

-Will

I had a similar idea back when CBS published their guidelines for fan productions and lots of people were being rather, uh, sensitive about it. Like, let's just make our own sandbox to play in.

Kor

 

[Will The Serious]

"Epic Tales from S.A.G.A."​

For theme song, click here.

-Will

 

[Mudd]

"Epic Tales from S.A.G.A."​

For theme song, click here.

-Will

NIce.

 

[Turtletrekker]

"Epic Tales from S.A.G.A."​

For theme song, click here.

-Will

Is that the Batman nebula?

 

[isicjod]

True story: During TNG’s original run, I wrote a spec script for it. (I was in college, and thought I was being clever — the plot was centered around something that would preemptively explain why Data would eventually visibly age as Brent Spiner did.). Thing is, PCs weren’t *quite* ubiquitous (or cheap) enough for my parents to get one for not-yet-working me, and what they’d instead gotten me for college use was one of those dedicated word-processors that were around back then that used a “DataDisk” format incompatible with what gradually became standard — and, with a small screen and other issues, took for-frickin-ever to type on, let alone revise, *let alone* arrange text in teleplay format.

So I worked out and finally finished my script — just in time for TNG to present us with Noonien Soong… who was a major presence (in hologram) in my story, with a completely different personality and motivations (let’s just say, not nearly as relatively kind and pleasant as the TV version). So I had to start revising. Taking for-frickin-ever. And that was before the damn thing broke…

As a stopgap measure until I could retype up the whole thing as a new version — introducing a whole new previously-unseen “Soong’s assistant” character to move “my” Soong’s dialogue and motivations onto — I ended up just handwriting increasingly sloppy updates on a printout copy.

With one thing and another, by the time I’d *finally* gotten the new version ready, TNG started approaching its end, and I knew it was too late to submit it.

Finally got a proper computer the following year.

But the long-after coda was that when Data “died” for the final time and seemingly forever in Picard S1 — because after all, Brent Spiner had visibly aged — I more than half-felt that it was all my fault!!, for not getting that script out all those years before.

These are the kinds of personal experiences I love to read about! I'm sure they would have maguffined their way towards killing data off anyways, so don't feel too bad about it

 

[Will The Serious]

Is that the Batman nebula?

WHAT?!??!? Uhhh... NO!

-Will