The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years

by Mark A. Altman

Lawrence Tierney caused a lot of turmoil. He was a drinker and he broke down. They wouldn’t let him on the lot one day, and he drove through the gate that was blocking him and was chased by security guards. There was a lot of stuff—I’d heard he was kind of a piece of work, but it was great to get him.

Similar to his appearance on Seinfeld

Stephen Hawking, the Hawk I call him. The Hawk is really a fabulous actor in his own right. I don’t know that anybody could have portrayed him as believably as he did. He was terrific.

It prompted very hilarious arguments about time travel and how it worked—“That’s not how time travel works, you idiot!”—with huge accusations and people falling back on primary sources like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure—“That’s the way it works, you can so meet yourself”—and all sorts of preposterous stuff.

The truth is that if Gene was alive, DS9 would have never been made, because he absolutely said no to it when it was presented to him.

As Sisko says, "I can live with it."

Within that we have the grittiness that Nicholas Meyer prefers,

Next Generation is like Superman and Deep Space Nine is like Batman.

I would say that Deep Space Nine is a much more adult series than any of the other Star Trek shows.

In the latter, while on a mission aboard the Defiant, Sisko and others discover the admiral accompanying them is actually a shape-shifter, culminating in a battle to the death between the Changeling and Odo.

One of the mistakes in the book, he's actually posing as an Ambassador.

Rick was adamant at first that the war would only take three or four episodes at the most. And we just said, “Sure,” but we lied.

Ron came back after the negotiations happened about whether we can blow her brains out or not and says, “Okay, I’ve good news and bad news. Good news for her is that she doesn’t get her brains blown out. The bad news is that she never gets to exist at all.”

DS9 is the true sci-fi baby of the Star Trek world, which is ironic to say because you immediately associate Star Trek with sci-fi, but you don’t think of DS9 as Star Trek.

Gene Roddenberry didn’t want conflict amongst his characters. That’s great, but it doesn’t help when you’re writing drama, because conflict is what drives drama.

A debate that continues today with the Section 31 release

One of the show’s most offbeat characters is the Doctor (Robert Picardo, then known for The Wonder Years as well as his work with Joe Dante on such movies as The Howling and Gremlins II: The New Batch), an Experimental Medical Program (EMP).

EMH! EMP is the byproduct of the nuclear explosion.

I don’t remember the comment, but Kate said something very snarky to Jeri and walked away. Jeri looked at me with a look of disbelief that said, “Can you believe that she said that?” I mouthed to her, “I know. I’m sorry.” She was so frustrated, she grabbed a phaser out of the holster of an extra standing near her and aimed it at Kate’s back as she walked away, pretending to fire. She was so mad. The whole situation was so high school.

DS9 was for geeks by geeks. Everybody in that room was a Star Trek fan. Everybody loved the genre. Everybody enjoyed playing with the tools of the genre.

The third day I was there, still learning my phone, there was a message for me. And I got the message. It was a female voice, speaking Klingon very seductively. I had no idea what she was saying. Unfortunately, I erased it.

I think Hollywood may have gone a bit to his head. The thing that I desperately tried to avoid. That and Bush getting elected.

If Star Trek was created today, you might very well see more of a Game of Thrones approach with a highly serialized, intricate storyline going on. MIKE SUSSMAN And ten-episode seasons instead of twenty-six.

EXACTLY where Picard went.

I’m honored to have been the temporary captain of the ships that Lucas and Roddenberry built. I only hope that my involvement helped bring more people into these universes, so lovingly and wonderfully drawn by their creators. It was an honor to have lived in these worlds, for a time, and to have been even a small part of their enduring legacies.

Time will tell but most die hard fans of both franchises would say he left them worse for wear.

When it was good, it was one of the best shows on television … and when it’s bad, it’s still good.

That was always bullshit, though. The belief of Gene Roddenberry was that somehow people would evolve past hatred and prejudice. That’s fucking childish. But, all the shows, no matter how dark Deep Space Nine might have gotten or Battlestar Galactica was, for that matter, it was still about people trying to remain hopeful.

In the Star Trek universe, the Tea Party wouldn’t exist.

One wonderful story I’ve always heard about Gene Roddenberry is he resented the fact that Scientology was a religion and not Star Trek. Because he considered himself a better writer than L. Ron Hubbard.