Q: Did your rpg somehow invent the Borg a year before TNG even aired?
A: Yes, we did. Our version of the Borg were the Bored, and existed in late 1986, just after Star Trek IV. TNG started in October 1987, and the Borg came out in late 1988. Some differences though, the Bored did not have cybernetic implants, but instead were forced to dress up in nerdy clothing and to be humiliated in various ways. The assimilation and end of individuality, and having a queen, yes, each Bored landing party had a queen, more like a general. The first of these was one of our teachers, who did not like that idea.
Q: The legendary apple toss from the backpack was part of the rgp also, so what was it?
A: Marx Cards had a thing about bringing apples to school to eat, and would toss them up in such a way, to catch them. The move was copied in Star Trek in TNG during season 2, and again a few times since, even on DS9. But on the season 7 try, it was a tennis ball. On DS9, a baseball. In 2009, JJ Abrams included an exact and very accurate recreation of the apple toss, on the Enterprise bridge.
Q: Did some of your teachers have an in at Paramount back in the day?
A: Dunno, but that must be what happened. Conventions in our era did not happen until season 2 of TNG, where we might have discussed these things. I'd say probably yes. After all, you do not need to pay the underage students for their ideas as they did not have agents!
Q: Was the Porthos in sickbay story your idea?
A: Marx Cards, not me, but they somehow found out at Viacom and made it an episode.
Q: Do you think Data was supposed to be autistic?
A: No. Data was socially awkward because he was a robot trying to be more human.
Q: The Red Angel in your stories is not a woman in a space suit flying in time. What is she?
A: It's a binary star system according to Star Crackers, 2014. The art building at San Jose State is likely the inspiration for later adaptations of Star Crackers stories, but not the film, as the Red Angel in Star Crackers was a double star system with a circumstantial disk. I think maybe Marx was thinking of Epsilon Indi, but we changed it. Indi is too young. The later 2012 version then speculates the star system is the red building. I think though we were thinking of two different structures, in that case, as there was a second red brick building in 1992, that is still there but now painted.
Q: Your version of the Titan A/Enterprise G is remarkably similar to the Titan A in 2388, how?
A: We took cues from the same source, the Sangri La class starship. Side by side they are different though.
Q: How did you think to include Picard LaForge, a strange TNG version of Kirk Spock, in a legit story?
A: It was quite funny and a risk, but since the scripts were actually not that randy, we go away with it.
Q: What was the convention you attended to inspire the series finale last month? Why include Nana Vistor's Kira if she wasn't there? Why not include John Clease who was?
A: Galaxy Con 2024. We wanted to retcon the joke about the baby, and Foster was a Kira, so she had to appear. As for Clease, he's a conservative, so I left him out.
Q: Why did they not consult you on Jack Crusher II's origins? Yours is more interesting!
A: I like my head canon one better, yes, matches more with Ed Spleers actual age. Dr. Crusher left the Enterprise D for a year for all of 2365, had him, and put him up for adoption, and later found him again after 2380. Makes more sense. The short answer is they did not ask me!
Q: Is it true that in the Discovery finale, the Progenitor female old woman was to be Nichelle Nichols, but she was too sick, and died not long after?
A: I cannot confirm this, but Larry Nemechek liked the idea, an it sure seems that's what they told the lady actress to act like. It would explain why they hinted at an old cast member returning, and it was never anyone, at all, and no, Daniels doesn't count. No, it was Nichelle, or supposed to be, not playing Uhura, but playing the alien. They could not get her.
Q: Do you think Disco messed up the Grey and Tahl thing?
A: They skirted around it since it started. Yes, they are not good at relationships. You could tell that for Stammets and Culber they had back story, and since they were contributing to the writing, they got to add more, but no, Grey and Tahl had a pathetic send off. Oh, he just stays on Trill. Hu! They actors aren't really teenagers. They're in their mid 20s. What it is, is they don't know how to write young people relationships. They're okay with two dudes over 45. Trans teenagers, not a chance.
Q: Do you think Picard LaForge too boscure?
A: No. When it was done, it explains in brief what it is, and it works. Just imagine that TNG episode with Q giving put powers, but Picard and Laforge instead wanting them, and keeping them, to become these other warped but lovable antiheroes.
Q: Captain Estrogen was the first queer coded Star Trek character, in your rpg from college, circa 1992. You finally realized him in this. How was that done?
A: Initially Estrogen the Lithian man is a Picard Laforge regular who appears, falls in love with season 1 Yar, and then appears a few other times, and yes, seems like he identifies as a female. It's just that his real name, Eggverchixtogenn is hard to say, so he went by Estrogen, not at first realizing it was a female hormone. He sings show tunes and is somehow more out than Garak from DS9, but at the time we didn't really get the connection. But now we do.
Q: The alien races called Terrellians were Marx Cards guys from the rpgs and college ones, so how did TNG come up with them too?
A:: Someone clearly knew. But Marx was thinking of Lithians from A Case of Conscience, and we included one, Estrogen, in college based stories, like Picard Laforge. Five different races have been them. In 2019, they were renamed the Terrmarellians. Disco then used them. So we're using them.
Q: You have a character on Discovery?
A: I do, the renegade Kal, (Actor Jonathan Koensgen) He played the Coridianite. (Er, Cohnirri). Never met him, but he does have Jon's real first name. That is so weird.
Q: Do you think originally Denise Crosby was to reprise her role as Sela in Picard year 3, and be the villain?
A: This is confirmed. Denise Crosby was at Galaxy Con and said she turned down an appearance as Sela because she didn't want to play the bad guy again. So they cast Amanda Plummer as Vadek. Coincidentally, our fan films gave her a sweet cameo in Legacy, and it was a great scene where she's more an antihero, and also Praetor. The Picard idea still could have worked though, as Vadek is revealed to be a changeling, not the original Sela, so it could have.
Q: How come you didn't watch the Star Trek V commentary with Bill Shatner?
A: I had run out of money at that point, and could not waste any more time at the con, but had to go before the end or be without a way to get home. I barely got back on the bus system.
Q: Will you later discuss your new series?
A: Not here, on the main channels, when it happens. It is in early production, lookin at a release next year, which really is months away.
